Transpositions has posted an interesting review of Aidan Nichols' The Poet as Believer: A Theological Study of Paul Claudel.
Claudel was a central figure in the French Catholic Revival and is 'a poet frequently cited by literary-minded theologians in Europe and theologically-minded poets (such as von Balthasar, de Lubac and Eliot).' 'His work, which continues to arouse discussion in France, was acclaimed in his lifetime as the 'summa poetica' of a new Dante.'
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Paul Claudel - The Day Of Gifts.
Showing posts with label transpositions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transpositions. Show all posts
Friday, 21 September 2012
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Steve Scott: Run with the Fire interview
Transpositions has today published an interview with Steve Scott about Run with the Fire. Run With The Fire is an arts project for the London 2012 Olympics year organized by CANA, commission4mission and Veritasse. Designed to exhibit in churches, Transpositions say that Run with the Fire is an interesting synergistic example of what happens when art, culture, and the church come together. Click here to read the interview.
Steve Scott is a British writer, poet, and musician whose songs have been recorded by artists including the 77s and Larry Norman. His musical and spoken word projects include Love in the Western World, Lost Horizon, Magnificent Obsession, More Than a Dream, The Butterfly Effect, Empty Orchestra, We Dreamed That We Were Strangers, and Crossing the Boundaries, in conjunction with painter Gaylen Stewart. In 2012, his songs became available on MP3 format, coincident with the release of a limited edition CD, Emotional Tourist: A Steve Scott Retrospective. He writes and speaks often on the arts in the UK and US, and is the author of Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Post-modern Culture, The Boundaries, and Crying for a Vision and Other Essays: The Collected Steve Scott Vol. One. He holds an MA in global leadership.
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Steve Scott - This Sad Music.
Steve Scott is a British writer, poet, and musician whose songs have been recorded by artists including the 77s and Larry Norman. His musical and spoken word projects include Love in the Western World, Lost Horizon, Magnificent Obsession, More Than a Dream, The Butterfly Effect, Empty Orchestra, We Dreamed That We Were Strangers, and Crossing the Boundaries, in conjunction with painter Gaylen Stewart. In 2012, his songs became available on MP3 format, coincident with the release of a limited edition CD, Emotional Tourist: A Steve Scott Retrospective. He writes and speaks often on the arts in the UK and US, and is the author of Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Post-modern Culture, The Boundaries, and Crying for a Vision and Other Essays: The Collected Steve Scott Vol. One. He holds an MA in global leadership.
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Steve Scott - This Sad Music.
Saturday, 16 June 2012
Impossible judgements: critiquing contemporary art
Transpositions has recently finished hosting an Art in the Church workshop where scholars, practitioners, and artists reflected on and considered issues that emerge when art and the Church intersect. I was interviewed about the work of commission4mission.
Interestingly those organising the workshop wrote that they "chose to feature examples because of the issues and questions that they raise rather than the artistic or aesthetic quality of the work of art" and "that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery."
These statements taken together seem to assume that criteria exist for determining the artistic or aesthetic quality of church art and gallery art. So much talk occurs about good and bad art that this would seem a reasonable assumption and yet I doubt that anyone would be able to articulate a set of criteria that had majority agreement in relation either to church art or gallery art.
The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones recently wrote an interesting piece on the way in which he stated that the age of the art critic as an unassailable voice of authority is long gone due to the force of digital debate and the era of readers biting back. Entitled 'how I learned to look – and listen' Jones wrote that the way he thinks about art criticism has changed: "Criticism in the age of social media has to be much more playful and giving ... Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate."
In the past, he argues, he and other art critics could speak in an "aggressive, cocksure, dismissive voice, determined to prove that my opinion was worth more than my readers" but "in today's more open forum – where people answer back, and where people often know more than I do – it becomes more and more absurd to claim such august authority for one's opinions." As a result, the way he thinks about his work, and about art, "is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006."
Essentially, Jones is arguing that, while he can still express strong opinions, he is now much more aware that his opinions are essentially personal opinions and need to be acknowledged as such. Again, in essence, he is saying that there are no agreed criteria for assessing, evaluating and critiquing contemporary art.
Not everyone agrees. Rachel Whiteread, in a recent G2 interview, seemed to argue in favour of elitism and against the democratic developments that Jones has noted, saying that "the papers can't get enough of culture and it's just rammed down everyone's throat. And actually I think to the detriment of culture, because it belittles it. Everyone can have a say, but not everyone's an expert, not everyone's an art critic. It's become far too easy to have a pop at modern art."
Grayson Perry has been exploring the issue of taste in the Channel 4 series All In The Best Possible Taste. He thinks that "there will always be this barrier where there are people who are looking for rules. A lot of the lower middle class still need reassurance and clear rules, which they find in brands and in definite trends because they perhaps don't have the confidence to go on their own intuition and try something else out. So there's always going to be a large proportion of the population that have what they think is a very clear idea about what is good taste. But of course the good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe."
In answer to the question as to whether taste is completely subjective or whether there is such a thing as good taste and bad taste, Perry said: "I think it's very similar to the way that the art world works. It's consensus plus time. If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste. Of course there are always fashions and changes within the group but they're often quite slow-moving. The art world is just another tribe in many ways and has its own system. What's interesting about the art world, of course, is that that's its business. It's almost like taste and visual culture are its business and therefore it's very, very self-aware about that, and other fields are less self-conscious than the art world."
On this basis, Transpositions would be correct in thinking that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery, because the church world and the art world are essentially different tribes with different tastes and fashions. Consensus is about the contemporary establishment, whether church or art world, while time is about the judgement of history. There are, of course, examples both of hugely popular artists in their own day being more harshly judged by history and of obscure artists in their own day being hugely valued through history.
Academia, the markets and the media all influence and affect the judgements that are made by consensus and history. Again, Perry is perceptive noting that, while the goal is to become "people who are confident enough to say, "I'll be the one to decide," it is "often when we think we're at our most individual we're most vulnerable to influence, and perhaps the hard-wiring of our upbringing comes into play; the material culture that one imbibed with one's mother's milk, that's the default setting on your taste, and often people don't even realise that's happening, when they make microscopic decisions all the time about what clothes to put on and how to decorate their houses."
Perry argues that "Part of being an artist is that you are achingly self-conscious about every aesthetic decision you make." Whiteread agrees that "anyone who makes art over a long period has to know when they are making good art and bad art" but acknowledges that "money and fame are very addictive" and can lead to people losing their "critical distinction" and making "shit work" which is "emperor's new clothes."
Artists are constantly making choices about what works and what doesn't in their own work and, each time they exhibit, also receiving feedback from others on the same issue. This is perhaps why artists develop their own personal sense of 'good' and 'bad' in art but, again, it has to be acknowledged that this primarily personal, although inevitably artists then also compare and contrast their choices with those of their peers and against the history of art.
The variety of styles and media that exist within contemporary art limit the extent to which such contrasts and comparisons can be made however. The action of Marcel Duchamp in exhibiting ready-mades and his arguing that the choice of the artist makes them art essentially opened floodgates which render rules or criteria for the creation and comparison of artworks superfluous.
In my recent review of The Christ Journey for Art & Christianity I noted that Sister Wendy Beckett, who wrote meditations on Greg Tricker's artworks, is an enthusiast who applies the instruction in Philippians 4:8, to fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise, to her writing and presenting. The kind of poring and praying over images that characterises Beckett's best writing can be a distinctively Christian contribution to the plurality of art criticism and can be cultivated through a framework that encourages a sustained contemplation of the artwork and which notes our personal responses to each facet of the work as well as their cumulative impact.
The work comes alive to us through the different layers of response we make to each facet of our consideration of the artwork and the debate this engenders. Each facet that we have considered involved an real engagement with aspects of Christianity and such sustained reflection on artworks will often lead to a recognition of the spirituality and religious engagement inherent in much modern and contemporary art and can result in distinctive approaches to art criticism from a Christian percpective among the plurality of views which is contemporary art criticism.
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The Kinks - Dedicated Follower of Fashion.
Interestingly those organising the workshop wrote that they "chose to feature examples because of the issues and questions that they raise rather than the artistic or aesthetic quality of the work of art" and "that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery."
These statements taken together seem to assume that criteria exist for determining the artistic or aesthetic quality of church art and gallery art. So much talk occurs about good and bad art that this would seem a reasonable assumption and yet I doubt that anyone would be able to articulate a set of criteria that had majority agreement in relation either to church art or gallery art.
The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones recently wrote an interesting piece on the way in which he stated that the age of the art critic as an unassailable voice of authority is long gone due to the force of digital debate and the era of readers biting back. Entitled 'how I learned to look – and listen' Jones wrote that the way he thinks about art criticism has changed: "Criticism in the age of social media has to be much more playful and giving ... Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate."
In the past, he argues, he and other art critics could speak in an "aggressive, cocksure, dismissive voice, determined to prove that my opinion was worth more than my readers" but "in today's more open forum – where people answer back, and where people often know more than I do – it becomes more and more absurd to claim such august authority for one's opinions." As a result, the way he thinks about his work, and about art, "is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006."
Essentially, Jones is arguing that, while he can still express strong opinions, he is now much more aware that his opinions are essentially personal opinions and need to be acknowledged as such. Again, in essence, he is saying that there are no agreed criteria for assessing, evaluating and critiquing contemporary art.
Not everyone agrees. Rachel Whiteread, in a recent G2 interview, seemed to argue in favour of elitism and against the democratic developments that Jones has noted, saying that "the papers can't get enough of culture and it's just rammed down everyone's throat. And actually I think to the detriment of culture, because it belittles it. Everyone can have a say, but not everyone's an expert, not everyone's an art critic. It's become far too easy to have a pop at modern art."
Grayson Perry has been exploring the issue of taste in the Channel 4 series All In The Best Possible Taste. He thinks that "there will always be this barrier where there are people who are looking for rules. A lot of the lower middle class still need reassurance and clear rules, which they find in brands and in definite trends because they perhaps don't have the confidence to go on their own intuition and try something else out. So there's always going to be a large proportion of the population that have what they think is a very clear idea about what is good taste. But of course the good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe."
In answer to the question as to whether taste is completely subjective or whether there is such a thing as good taste and bad taste, Perry said: "I think it's very similar to the way that the art world works. It's consensus plus time. If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste. Of course there are always fashions and changes within the group but they're often quite slow-moving. The art world is just another tribe in many ways and has its own system. What's interesting about the art world, of course, is that that's its business. It's almost like taste and visual culture are its business and therefore it's very, very self-aware about that, and other fields are less self-conscious than the art world."
On this basis, Transpositions would be correct in thinking that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery, because the church world and the art world are essentially different tribes with different tastes and fashions. Consensus is about the contemporary establishment, whether church or art world, while time is about the judgement of history. There are, of course, examples both of hugely popular artists in their own day being more harshly judged by history and of obscure artists in their own day being hugely valued through history.
Academia, the markets and the media all influence and affect the judgements that are made by consensus and history. Again, Perry is perceptive noting that, while the goal is to become "people who are confident enough to say, "I'll be the one to decide," it is "often when we think we're at our most individual we're most vulnerable to influence, and perhaps the hard-wiring of our upbringing comes into play; the material culture that one imbibed with one's mother's milk, that's the default setting on your taste, and often people don't even realise that's happening, when they make microscopic decisions all the time about what clothes to put on and how to decorate their houses."
Perry argues that "Part of being an artist is that you are achingly self-conscious about every aesthetic decision you make." Whiteread agrees that "anyone who makes art over a long period has to know when they are making good art and bad art" but acknowledges that "money and fame are very addictive" and can lead to people losing their "critical distinction" and making "shit work" which is "emperor's new clothes."
Artists are constantly making choices about what works and what doesn't in their own work and, each time they exhibit, also receiving feedback from others on the same issue. This is perhaps why artists develop their own personal sense of 'good' and 'bad' in art but, again, it has to be acknowledged that this primarily personal, although inevitably artists then also compare and contrast their choices with those of their peers and against the history of art.
The variety of styles and media that exist within contemporary art limit the extent to which such contrasts and comparisons can be made however. The action of Marcel Duchamp in exhibiting ready-mades and his arguing that the choice of the artist makes them art essentially opened floodgates which render rules or criteria for the creation and comparison of artworks superfluous.
In my recent review of The Christ Journey for Art & Christianity I noted that Sister Wendy Beckett, who wrote meditations on Greg Tricker's artworks, is an enthusiast who applies the instruction in Philippians 4:8, to fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise, to her writing and presenting. The kind of poring and praying over images that characterises Beckett's best writing can be a distinctively Christian contribution to the plurality of art criticism and can be cultivated through a framework that encourages a sustained contemplation of the artwork and which notes our personal responses to each facet of the work as well as their cumulative impact.
I have outlined this framework previously in relation to Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. All response to art begins with contemplation of the work itself and consideration of our initial responses. Those viewing Piss Christ without knowing anything of the work often comment on the beauty of the images, the traditional nature of the crucifix and the way in which it is lit.
Next, is to contemplate the nature of the artwork itself. In this case, a 60x40 inch Cibachrome
photograph of a small plastic crucifix submerged in urine. Responses often include comments on its beauty and the traditional nature of
the image in addition to questioning whether the work is intended
satirically.
Then, the ideas and influences of the artist in creating this piece
include it being one in a series of
classical statuettes submerged in fluids and a comment on the commercialisation
of religion. Responses often include questions
about other statuettes in the series and about the artist's motivation in
attacking the commercialisation of religion.
Then, in thinking about the artwork’s relationship with its
historical and art historical context, we can see that the crucifix has an art
historical lineage but is also a contemporary commercial religious product, so
the work contributes to a debate regarding traditional and contemporary
expressions of Christianity. Responses often
include a sense of agreeing that the work raises issues about the nature of
images in religion.
Finally, the response of viewer’s to this artwork has been twofold.
There have been death threats to the
artist, vandalism of the artwork and attempts to ban it from those who view it
as an attack on Christianity. Alternatively, there are Christians who see it as
a depiction of incarnation; of Christ coming into the detritus of life. Responses often include the acknowledgement that the work
stimulates a depth of debate because it works on several different
levels.
The work comes alive to us through the different layers of response we make to each facet of our consideration of the artwork and the debate this engenders. Each facet that we have considered involved an real engagement with aspects of Christianity and such sustained reflection on artworks will often lead to a recognition of the spirituality and religious engagement inherent in much modern and contemporary art and can result in distinctive approaches to art criticism from a Christian percpective among the plurality of views which is contemporary art criticism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kinks - Dedicated Follower of Fashion.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Theatre and Theology listing
Transpositions currently has a useful post listing organisations engaged in linking theatre and theology.
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Malcolm Guite - My Poetry Is Jamming Your Machine.
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Malcolm Guite - My Poetry Is Jamming Your Machine.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
The art of embodied experience
Transpositions has an excellent post today by Peter Phillips entitled Embodying Art: Renewing Religion?
Phillips argues that "the Church in the West faces continued decline until it reverses its rejection of artists who can frame and present their own embodied experience and draw their audience into an embodied understanding of the world in which they live or hope to live."
This is because "everything we experience has to be embodied ... every experience we have can only be perceived, received, experienced by a sentient, embodied individual." Art also needs to be experienced; art makes its own statement regardless of its audience but "the produced data (visual, verbal, aural, oral, plastic, moving, multimedia, monomedia) is usually meant to be experienced through the locus of embodiment."
"This was a truth which the medieval European Church understood" that, at its heart:
"religion is better understood as embodied experience than by rational assent. Think of all the sense images in Christianity alone: blood, wine, bread, flesh, sacrifice, baptism, circumcision, eating, drinking, purification, washing, meals, healing, touch, kiss, embrace, bite, devour, the word of God made flesh."
Therefore, "Art embodied, ‘live’ or digital, in all its forms offers an iconographic entry point into a multisensory embodied experience of Christianity itself."
Nicolas Bourriaud argued that relational art takes “as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space” and that a work of art, if it is to be successful, “will invariably set its sights beyond its mere presence in space” by being “open to dialogue, discussion, and that form of inter-human negotiation that Marcel Duchamp called “the coefficient of art”.”
Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics suggests that “Art is a state of encounter” and that the role of artworks is that we learn “to inhabit the world in a better way” through participating in “arenas of encounter”, created by the artworks themselves, in which momentary micro-communities are formed:
“Today’s art, and I’m thinking of [artists such as Gonzalez-Torres, ... Angela Bulloch, Carsten Höller, Gabriel Orozco and Pierre Huyghe] as well as Lincoln Tobier, Ben Kinmont, and Andrea Zittel, to name just three more, encompasses in the working process the presence of the micro-community which will accommodate it. A work thus creates, within its method of production and then at the moment of its exhibition, a momentary grouping of participating viewers.”
What such artists produce, Bourriaud argues, “are relational space-time elements, inter-human experiences ... of the places where alternative forms of sociability, critical models and moments of constructed conviviality are worked out.” In other words, such artworks create “relations outside the field of art”: “relations between individuals and groups, between the artist and the world, and, by way of transitivity, between the beholder and the world.”
Richard Davey has a marvellous phrase for the network of relationships which form around any artwork; “respect for the work of art as an object itself made by an embodied human being for embodied human beings."
As Phillips notes in his post, there would seem to be many resonances between what are essentially 'happenings' which involve the viewer as participant (indeed, which move those who are other than the artist from viewer to participant), the art created by 'relational' artists, and what happens in church services.
The Eucharist is a happening which is only completed by the congregation becoming participants and which only has meaning as this occurs. The Eucharist can only proceed if the president receives responses from the congregation to the Eucharistic Prayer and the point and culmination of the Eucharist is when the congregation take the body and blood of Christ into their own bodies. A theological analysis of relationships at this point should conclude that the body of Christ has been both dispersed and gathered among and by the receiving church community. There are significant parallels to significant works of relational art such as Rikrit Tiravanija's shared meal installation.
It is my belief that as Christians we should be seeking to create temporary signs of the Kingdom of God which can be experienced by those in our community but which are only tasters for the fullness of the Kingdom which is yet to come. These are embodiments of the Kingdom. The Eucharist is the central example of such signs which, as David Jones consistently stated, have to participate in the reality which is being signed in order to have validity and meaning.
Again, there are significant parallels to Bourriaud's idea of an endless succession of actions (or 'space-time elements') in which a temporary collective is formed by means of which fairer social relations are permitted together with more compact ways of living and many different combinations of fertile experience.
All this is ultimately about the reality and necessity of incarnation. As Rhidian Brook once said on Thought for the Day:
"... there is no substitute for being there - incarnate or, literally, in the flesh. No amount of words sent by post or by telephone or over social networking sites - can ever match the visceral reality of presence. Face to phone or face to screen will never match face to face."
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Evanescence - Tourniquet.
Phillips argues that "the Church in the West faces continued decline until it reverses its rejection of artists who can frame and present their own embodied experience and draw their audience into an embodied understanding of the world in which they live or hope to live."
This is because "everything we experience has to be embodied ... every experience we have can only be perceived, received, experienced by a sentient, embodied individual." Art also needs to be experienced; art makes its own statement regardless of its audience but "the produced data (visual, verbal, aural, oral, plastic, moving, multimedia, monomedia) is usually meant to be experienced through the locus of embodiment."
"This was a truth which the medieval European Church understood" that, at its heart:
"religion is better understood as embodied experience than by rational assent. Think of all the sense images in Christianity alone: blood, wine, bread, flesh, sacrifice, baptism, circumcision, eating, drinking, purification, washing, meals, healing, touch, kiss, embrace, bite, devour, the word of God made flesh."
Therefore, "Art embodied, ‘live’ or digital, in all its forms offers an iconographic entry point into a multisensory embodied experience of Christianity itself."
Nicolas Bourriaud argued that relational art takes “as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space” and that a work of art, if it is to be successful, “will invariably set its sights beyond its mere presence in space” by being “open to dialogue, discussion, and that form of inter-human negotiation that Marcel Duchamp called “the coefficient of art”.”
Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics suggests that “Art is a state of encounter” and that the role of artworks is that we learn “to inhabit the world in a better way” through participating in “arenas of encounter”, created by the artworks themselves, in which momentary micro-communities are formed:
“Today’s art, and I’m thinking of [artists such as Gonzalez-Torres, ... Angela Bulloch, Carsten Höller, Gabriel Orozco and Pierre Huyghe] as well as Lincoln Tobier, Ben Kinmont, and Andrea Zittel, to name just three more, encompasses in the working process the presence of the micro-community which will accommodate it. A work thus creates, within its method of production and then at the moment of its exhibition, a momentary grouping of participating viewers.”
What such artists produce, Bourriaud argues, “are relational space-time elements, inter-human experiences ... of the places where alternative forms of sociability, critical models and moments of constructed conviviality are worked out.” In other words, such artworks create “relations outside the field of art”: “relations between individuals and groups, between the artist and the world, and, by way of transitivity, between the beholder and the world.”
Richard Davey has a marvellous phrase for the network of relationships which form around any artwork; “respect for the work of art as an object itself made by an embodied human being for embodied human beings."
As Phillips notes in his post, there would seem to be many resonances between what are essentially 'happenings' which involve the viewer as participant (indeed, which move those who are other than the artist from viewer to participant), the art created by 'relational' artists, and what happens in church services.
The Eucharist is a happening which is only completed by the congregation becoming participants and which only has meaning as this occurs. The Eucharist can only proceed if the president receives responses from the congregation to the Eucharistic Prayer and the point and culmination of the Eucharist is when the congregation take the body and blood of Christ into their own bodies. A theological analysis of relationships at this point should conclude that the body of Christ has been both dispersed and gathered among and by the receiving church community. There are significant parallels to significant works of relational art such as Rikrit Tiravanija's shared meal installation.
It is my belief that as Christians we should be seeking to create temporary signs of the Kingdom of God which can be experienced by those in our community but which are only tasters for the fullness of the Kingdom which is yet to come. These are embodiments of the Kingdom. The Eucharist is the central example of such signs which, as David Jones consistently stated, have to participate in the reality which is being signed in order to have validity and meaning.
Again, there are significant parallels to Bourriaud's idea of an endless succession of actions (or 'space-time elements') in which a temporary collective is formed by means of which fairer social relations are permitted together with more compact ways of living and many different combinations of fertile experience.
All this is ultimately about the reality and necessity of incarnation. As Rhidian Brook once said on Thought for the Day:
"... there is no substitute for being there - incarnate or, literally, in the flesh. No amount of words sent by post or by telephone or over social networking sites - can ever match the visceral reality of presence. Face to phone or face to screen will never match face to face."
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Evanescence - Tourniquet.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Arts and Mission: Reluctant Partners
John Franklin, Executive Director of Imago, a national initiative in support of Christians in the arts in Canada, has written an interesting post as part of the week on Art and Mission at Transpositions.
Franklin writes that the "arts and mission are reluctant partners" because "artists are commonly uncomfortable with the idea of carrying a specific agenda in their work," not wishing to "preach through their art" while "many who do mission work are intent on being clear and direct in their message" avoiding art which is unclear, indirect and ambiguous. Additionally:
"It’s common among those of evangelical persuasion to hold to a spirituality that disengages us from the material world – a pietism focused on the inner life. Art, by contrast, is sensual and naturally engages the material world. Theologically we have tended to diminish the importance of the doctrine of creation and along with it the cultural mandate. We are called to be stewards of the created order, crafters and those who engage the imagination for a wide variety of purposes. These are callings that often get neglected in our desire to focus on redemption."
commission4mission, the arts organisation with which I am involved, has sought to be clear that commissioning contemporary art for churches is about mission. Pragmatically, we have argued that the Arts contribute to the mission of the Church by:
Our work demonstrates the value of these approaches in the way: our commissions speak of the Christian faith; our Art Trail project for the Barking Episcopal Area has encouraged visits to churches; we linked local churches with the Harlow Art Trust in planning our study day on public art; and in the community arts initiatives that we have organised and supported.
At commission4mission we have experienced real interest on the ground in this kind of engagement. Franklin also writes that:
"There are signs of change. Renewed interest in the arts is evident in faith communities around the globe. Arts pastors – unheard of 20 years ago – are a growing breed in the west at least. Many Asian churches are giving serious attention to the arts by including art galleries and performance space for their communities. In Africa, South America and the Middle East the arts are so woven into the culture it is hard to exclude them from faith communities. Add to this the widespread movement to shed Western influences and to recover indigenous art forms for worship and it becomes clear that we are in an important transition time for arts and mission."
He says that the question he would like to pose is, “How might we engage the arts in the missional task? It is evident, he thinks, that "the arts are an untapped resource for mission among many who operate in the world of mission work":
"The task of mission is one of communication. Art has the power to move us, engage us, and enable us to see in a new way. Art can open us to the truth of things in fresh ways, and it invites us to discover what we may not have known before."
In my view, artists see from fresh perspectives, make new connections, and explore questions in and through their work. For the Arts and Mission to be more than reluctant partners, the Church needs to acknowledge that to do these things is 'mission' and to affirm artists in these actions in every arena within which they practice their art, whether in the mainstream art world or within the frame of Christian mission and ministry.
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Paul Johnson - Half A World Away.
Franklin writes that the "arts and mission are reluctant partners" because "artists are commonly uncomfortable with the idea of carrying a specific agenda in their work," not wishing to "preach through their art" while "many who do mission work are intent on being clear and direct in their message" avoiding art which is unclear, indirect and ambiguous. Additionally:
"It’s common among those of evangelical persuasion to hold to a spirituality that disengages us from the material world – a pietism focused on the inner life. Art, by contrast, is sensual and naturally engages the material world. Theologically we have tended to diminish the importance of the doctrine of creation and along with it the cultural mandate. We are called to be stewards of the created order, crafters and those who engage the imagination for a wide variety of purposes. These are callings that often get neglected in our desire to focus on redemption."
commission4mission, the arts organisation with which I am involved, has sought to be clear that commissioning contemporary art for churches is about mission. Pragmatically, we have argued that the Arts contribute to the mission of the Church by:
• speaking eloquently of the faith;
• providing a reason to visit a church;
• making links between churches and local arts organisations/ initiatives; and
• providing a focus for people to come together for a shared activity.
Our work demonstrates the value of these approaches in the way: our commissions speak of the Christian faith; our Art Trail project for the Barking Episcopal Area has encouraged visits to churches; we linked local churches with the Harlow Art Trust in planning our study day on public art; and in the community arts initiatives that we have organised and supported.
At commission4mission we have experienced real interest on the ground in this kind of engagement. Franklin also writes that:
"There are signs of change. Renewed interest in the arts is evident in faith communities around the globe. Arts pastors – unheard of 20 years ago – are a growing breed in the west at least. Many Asian churches are giving serious attention to the arts by including art galleries and performance space for their communities. In Africa, South America and the Middle East the arts are so woven into the culture it is hard to exclude them from faith communities. Add to this the widespread movement to shed Western influences and to recover indigenous art forms for worship and it becomes clear that we are in an important transition time for arts and mission."
He says that the question he would like to pose is, “How might we engage the arts in the missional task? It is evident, he thinks, that "the arts are an untapped resource for mission among many who operate in the world of mission work":
"The task of mission is one of communication. Art has the power to move us, engage us, and enable us to see in a new way. Art can open us to the truth of things in fresh ways, and it invites us to discover what we may not have known before."
In my view, artists see from fresh perspectives, make new connections, and explore questions in and through their work. For the Arts and Mission to be more than reluctant partners, the Church needs to acknowledge that to do these things is 'mission' and to affirm artists in these actions in every arena within which they practice their art, whether in the mainstream art world or within the frame of Christian mission and ministry.
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Paul Johnson - Half A World Away.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Beyond the power of words
I have a new article published today on the Transpositions blog entitled 'Walter Navratil: Beyond the Power of Words'.
Walter Navratil was an Austrian artist whose work shows the influence of Art Brut and which explores the incidence and impact of mental distress. This exploration is, however, always shot through with Christian concepts, themes and images focused on suffering, its endurance and redemption.
Transpositions is a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews, voted runner-up as Best Newcomer Blog in the Christian New Media Awards 2010.
Its organisers write:
"On one level, transpositions connotes our goal to create conversations between Christian theology and the arts. Just like a musician might transpose from the key of B flat Major to C Major in order to create beautiful music with other instruments, we desire to transpose from the mode of theology to the arts and from the arts to theology in order to create meaningful resonances. Transpositions also brings to mind placing images and ideas of varying opacity over one another so that from particular points of view they appear to blend without distinction, creating a new form of beauty. On yet another level, transpositions suggests the nature of both art and theology as a transposition of divine reality into earthly form. As C. S. Lewis concluded in his brilliant essay entitled ‘Transposition,’ our glimpse of God through embodied transpositions and our taste of true reality in the present gives us hope that one day we will experience the fullness of beauty."
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Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris - Love Hurts.
Walter Navratil was an Austrian artist whose work shows the influence of Art Brut and which explores the incidence and impact of mental distress. This exploration is, however, always shot through with Christian concepts, themes and images focused on suffering, its endurance and redemption.
Transpositions is a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews, voted runner-up as Best Newcomer Blog in the Christian New Media Awards 2010.
Its organisers write:
"On one level, transpositions connotes our goal to create conversations between Christian theology and the arts. Just like a musician might transpose from the key of B flat Major to C Major in order to create beautiful music with other instruments, we desire to transpose from the mode of theology to the arts and from the arts to theology in order to create meaningful resonances. Transpositions also brings to mind placing images and ideas of varying opacity over one another so that from particular points of view they appear to blend without distinction, creating a new form of beauty. On yet another level, transpositions suggests the nature of both art and theology as a transposition of divine reality into earthly form. As C. S. Lewis concluded in his brilliant essay entitled ‘Transposition,’ our glimpse of God through embodied transpositions and our taste of true reality in the present gives us hope that one day we will experience the fullness of beauty."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris - Love Hurts.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
The humour of the really real and the more than real
Transpositions is a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews which was voted runner-up as Best Newcomer Blog in the Christian New Media Awards 2010. The blog aims to transpose from the mode of theology to the arts and from the arts to theology in order to create meaningful resonances.
In a recent post Jim Watkins advocates for William Lynch's contention in Christ and Apollo that "comedy is the imaginative form par excellence because it exposes, like no other form can, our concrete and finite reality." Watkins writes that:
"Lynch contrasts comedy and tragedy as the two ends of a telescope. Tragedy looks at life through the narrow end where the human condition is writ large, and so we weep for its frailty and death. Comedy, however, looks at life through the wide end where the human appears small and insignificant, and so we laugh at its foibles and awkwardness."
I agree that this is true for much comedy but not for my favourite form of comedy; which is the surreal. Surreal humour is either more than real - taking us on a flight fancy from a real starting point to a world that is other than our own - or really real - creating absurdity by taking literally what is commonly understood figuratively.
Here are several examples primarily as an excuse to post some great sketches:
The Goon Show - 'The Great String Robberies'
Seagoon: Oh, jolly good, jolly good, ha-ha! [Nose throw sound] Now, where's the scene of the crime?
Navy Red Kilt: This is the hoose.
Scot No.1: Aye, welcome to the scene of the crime.
Seagoon: Ah, wheres the front door?
Scot No.1: It's in this brown paper parcel. [Opens it] We only use it for going in and out. Agh, there.
FX: [Door opens]
Scot No.1: The black-bearded criminal must have got in through the door or the windows. Everything else was locked.
Seagoon: I see. Right. Now, who was killed?
Scot No.1: No one's been killed.
Seagoon: Then this is a job for the police.
Scot No.1: You are a policeman.
Seagoon: Oh, yes, yes, I wasted no time getting here, did I, eh? - Hands up! You're all under arrest!
FX: [Door through which they enter]
Greenslade: The String Robberies, Part Two.
Seagoon: Part Two? That's us!
Scot No.1: You see that piece of string on the table?
Seagoon: Yes. What's that space in the middle?
Scot No.1: That's the piece that's missing.
Seagoon: So! So that's what a piece of missing string looks like, eh? Where's it gone? Ah! [laughs] But wait... can't you see, you, you poor Scottish fool!
Scot No.1: [Gnashing teeth sounds]
Seagoon: It's all, it's all a practical joke!
Scot No.1: [Gnashing teeth sounds]
Seagoon: Someone's cut that string in the center, pulled the two pieces in opposite directions, giving the impression that a piece had been removed from the middle.
Scot No.1: Hairy gringlers, he's right! Och, it's true! If you put these two pieces together, the gap disappears!
Scot No.2: Aye, but did you notice when you did that, the two outside ends got shorter?
Seagoon: Gad... Gad, Chisolm's right! Now I see what happened. What cunning! [laughs] The criminal's cut a piece off each end, then cut across the middle pulled them apart, making the string look the original length.
Scot No.1: Oh dear, this makes it a baffling case.
Scot No.2: Aye.
Seagoon: Ah yes. Instead of one piece we're looking for two separate ends... It's a good job I can count! [laughs] We must start investigations at once!
FX: [Link music]
Greenslade: [As radio announcer] ...Finally, here is a police message: Will all people in possession of two pieces of string please report to their local police station.
Spike Milligan - The Late News
Marty Feldman - Travel Agency Sketch
At Last The 1948 Show - Four Yorkshiremen
Monty Python - Ministry of Silly Walks
Paul Merton - The Series Episode 4
In a recent post Jim Watkins advocates for William Lynch's contention in Christ and Apollo that "comedy is the imaginative form par excellence because it exposes, like no other form can, our concrete and finite reality." Watkins writes that:
"Lynch contrasts comedy and tragedy as the two ends of a telescope. Tragedy looks at life through the narrow end where the human condition is writ large, and so we weep for its frailty and death. Comedy, however, looks at life through the wide end where the human appears small and insignificant, and so we laugh at its foibles and awkwardness."
I agree that this is true for much comedy but not for my favourite form of comedy; which is the surreal. Surreal humour is either more than real - taking us on a flight fancy from a real starting point to a world that is other than our own - or really real - creating absurdity by taking literally what is commonly understood figuratively.
Here are several examples primarily as an excuse to post some great sketches:
The Goon Show - 'The Great String Robberies'
Seagoon: Oh, jolly good, jolly good, ha-ha! [Nose throw sound] Now, where's the scene of the crime?
Navy Red Kilt: This is the hoose.
Scot No.1: Aye, welcome to the scene of the crime.
Seagoon: Ah, wheres the front door?
Scot No.1: It's in this brown paper parcel. [Opens it] We only use it for going in and out. Agh, there.
FX: [Door opens]
Scot No.1: The black-bearded criminal must have got in through the door or the windows. Everything else was locked.
Seagoon: I see. Right. Now, who was killed?
Scot No.1: No one's been killed.
Seagoon: Then this is a job for the police.
Scot No.1: You are a policeman.
Seagoon: Oh, yes, yes, I wasted no time getting here, did I, eh? - Hands up! You're all under arrest!
FX: [Door through which they enter]
Greenslade: The String Robberies, Part Two.
Seagoon: Part Two? That's us!
Scot No.1: You see that piece of string on the table?
Seagoon: Yes. What's that space in the middle?
Scot No.1: That's the piece that's missing.
Seagoon: So! So that's what a piece of missing string looks like, eh? Where's it gone? Ah! [laughs] But wait... can't you see, you, you poor Scottish fool!
Scot No.1: [Gnashing teeth sounds]
Seagoon: It's all, it's all a practical joke!
Scot No.1: [Gnashing teeth sounds]
Seagoon: Someone's cut that string in the center, pulled the two pieces in opposite directions, giving the impression that a piece had been removed from the middle.
Scot No.1: Hairy gringlers, he's right! Och, it's true! If you put these two pieces together, the gap disappears!
Scot No.2: Aye, but did you notice when you did that, the two outside ends got shorter?
Seagoon: Gad... Gad, Chisolm's right! Now I see what happened. What cunning! [laughs] The criminal's cut a piece off each end, then cut across the middle pulled them apart, making the string look the original length.
Scot No.1: Oh dear, this makes it a baffling case.
Scot No.2: Aye.
Seagoon: Ah yes. Instead of one piece we're looking for two separate ends... It's a good job I can count! [laughs] We must start investigations at once!
FX: [Link music]
Greenslade: [As radio announcer] ...Finally, here is a police message: Will all people in possession of two pieces of string please report to their local police station.
Spike Milligan - The Late News
Marty Feldman - Travel Agency Sketch
At Last The 1948 Show - Four Yorkshiremen
Monty Python - Ministry of Silly Walks
Paul Merton - The Series Episode 4
Milton Jones - Food
Milton Jones - House of Rooms
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The Style Council - The Stand Up Comic's Instructions.
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