Sacred Noise at Christie's

Sacred Noise explores themes of religion, faith and divinity in post-war and contemporary art through 30 works shown at Christie’s until 21 July. The exhibition seeks to chart the reinterpretation and subversion of these themes in the 20th century.

The starting point for Sacred Noise is the permission granted through Christ’s incarnation to depict the divine in human form which developed in the West in the direction of realism. The humanism of the Renaissance represented a significant move within this development. Keith Walker has written that ‘The Renaissance was the period when man and the world were re-discovered … Previously the artist was considered only a maker. God alone created. In the Renaissance man’s Godlikeness was asserted.’ Luis de Morales’ Ecce Homo variations showed Christ alone and at close range, blurring the boundaries between the human and the divine, then the vivid tableaux vivants of 16th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán, gave the faithful a sense of direct access to the scenes he depicted.

While there is work included by the likes of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Sir Anthony van Dyck, the exhibition, once it has established realism as the primary mode of Christian expression in the West, is then keen to arrive at the beginning of the modern period to show how the European legacy of religious painting was reborn and redefined in post-war and contemporary art.

The argument made is that the wide range of work on display in Sacred Noise makes clear that, if divinity was long the anchor of human existence, its artistic unmooring in the 20th century has opened up endless new interpretative horizons. These interpretive horizons involve a move from realism to expressionism, abstraction and conceptual art while engaging with the sense that nothing is considered sacred — or scandalous — any more, the idea that art, science and money have come to supplant religion in the West, and the rejection of a divinity that leaves us tormented, forsaken and horrifyingly alone in a godless world.

Francis Bacon, Lucio Fontana, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Maurizio Cattelan are cited and shown as being just a very few of the artists who shook the canon through their engagement with religion. However, there are issues with this selection of artists and with the argument made here through their work.

Firstly, the response of these artists is more nuanced in regard to religion than the exhibition allows. Bacon said that he could find no other subject as valid as the Crucifixion to embrace all the nuances of human feelings and behaviours that enabled him to think about all life’s horror. For Fontana, his Fine di Dio series rejected earthly images of God and symbolised instead the apophatic God, ‘infinity, the unfathomable, the end of figuration, the principle of the void.’ From the early 1980s onwards, religious imagery surfaces in Warhol’s art with his confronting of his own mortality giving way, as the exhibition catalogue states, to an interest in redemption and salvation. Biblical references also come to feature in Hirst’s art through his sense that the Bible has ‘great stories’ which ‘you can use … to fnd out what your life actually amounts to, in the end.’ Cattelan states that, as one who grew up singing in the church choir, his work is not anti-Catholic, but a way to ‘open people’s eyes to the faux sensibility of a culture where nothing is really considered either sacred or scandalous anymore.’ The work of these artists does not simply indicate the death of God among artists or society, as this exhibition, at points, wishes to suggest.

Secondly, the exhibition seems to make clear that this argument is only sustainable through its selective choice of artists. Of those 20th century artists exhibited here, only Eric Gill and Stanley Spencer are artists uniformly acknowledged as those creating from the inspiration of their faith. Yet a different selection of artists – Arthur Boyd, Marc Chagall, Maurice Denis, Makoto Fujimura, Albert Herbert, David Jones, Colin McCahon, John Piper, Georges Rouault, Gino Severini, Betty Spackman, Graham Sutherland, Paul Thek, Vincent Van Gogh, among others - could easily result in an exhibition to support the argument that the relationship between art and faith has been relatively close and positive in the modern period.

Themes of religion, faith and divinity have pervaded art throughout the centuries. The 20th-century did see the reinterpretation and subversion of those themes. Yet, the rebirth and redefinition of the European legacy of religious painting includes much that is affirming of religion, in addition to much which challenges its basic premises and history. This exhibition has more of the latter than the former. I would suggest that, at present, the story of art which has continuity with de Morales, Zurbarán and Cranach is the road less documented and therefore, because of its hidden treasures, is currently the more interesting story to tell.

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Good Charlotte - Beautiful Place.

Seven Kings & Newbury Park Residents Association (SKNPRA) Newsletter

Audrey Shorer, Secretary to SKNPRA, writes:

Our AGM held on the 16th July was well attended and we were pleased that PC Jackson-Plume was able to give us a run down on activities in Newbury Park & Seven Kings. He explained the recent restructuring of staff in Redbridge which left 1 Sergeant , 1 PC and 1 PCSO for each ward.

Although crime figures were down in Newbury and Seven Kings, those in Chadwell & Clayhall have risen.

He urged members to attend the 3 monthly Police Ward Panels to raise local issues. The next meeting is on Monday 15th Sept. 7.30 at Barkingside Police station. If you are interested, please contact newbury.snt@met.police.uk address to FAO Ward Panel.

NEW CHAIRMAN.

The Rev Jonathan Evens has been our hard working Chairman for 6 years. Due to his three month sabbatical and heavy work load he asked to stand down as Chairman. We were most grateful for the untiring support he gave us throughout our activities.

We were pleased to welcome David Stephens as our new Chairman. He has been a Newbury Park resident for 39 years and is Chairman of the Civilian Committee of 4F (Ilford) Squadron Air Cadets also the East Sector representative on the civilian committee of the London Wing, Air Cadets.

He has already put in much time and effort as acting Chairman since Jonathan stood down.

SECRETARY’S REPORT. Audrey Shorer.

We have been involved in 3 main projects this year.

The first was to petition TfL to install step free access at Newbury Park & Seven Kings stations. You may remember that work was started on a lift shaft at Newbury Park Station in 2009, but TfL ran out of funds for the project and the hole was filled in.

In July last year we held a protest meeting at Newbury Park which was well attended and reported. Since then we have continued to badger TfL and Mayor Boris Johnson with support from Redbridge Councillors. Recently Boris indicated that SK might receive funding for step free access.

We would like to thank committee member Peter Robinson for all the time and effort he has put in with letters, e-mails & phone calls on this ongoing project and I ask you all to sign the petition here tonight.

The second project is for a permanent swimming pool in Ilford. We have been campaigning on this issue since 2003 when the old pool was threatened with demolition. Since then we have seen many plans and been given many promises, the last one that a pool will be built in 2018 but no indication of the cost or where it will be built.

I would like to thank committee members Martin Clinton & Kate Kennedy for their efforts in contacting Redbridge Councillors, Boris Johnson and local swimming groups with an ongoing demand for a pool.

The third project was to object to a proposal by Redbridge Council to close St Johns Rd and put a mini roundabout at the junction of Aldborough rd Sth and Meads Lane.

Our Chairman, Jonathan, Mark and myself spoke at Area 5 & 7 committee meetings to point out the futility of this plan. The proposal was rejected by both committees. We continue to press TfL for traffic lights at this junction.

Our Chairman, Rev Jonathan Evens has set up the Sophia Hub Timebank at St Johns church which is a community network to help and advise local entrepreneurs wishing to start new businesses. They have regular meetings with speakers on a variety of subjects such as business planning, e-safety and customer service. The use of internet is available at St Johns church where the meetings are held. The next meeting is on Tuesday 26th August 7pm. If you are interested, contact ros.southern@sophiahubs.com

In between times we have dealt with issues of parking, fly-tipping, lighting and planning.

I have produced 3 Newsletters since the last AGM. The last one sent by e-mail to all those who have given their e-mail address. The rest have been hand delivered or posted. I would like to thank all those who help with the hand deliveries.

TREASURER’S REPORT. Jayanti Parmar.

Our bank balance at 31 03 2014 stands at £ 2,815.03 Expenditure over the year was £749.85.

A full account report is available on request.

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY’S REPORT Mark Kennedy.

It has been a busy twelve months for me in this role. I promised you as members (households) last year that I would with my committees support increase the membership to 200 members by the end of December 2013. I have to say that I owe you all an apology I was unable to hit this target in December, which I hope you will forgive me for. However, I did manage to increase the membership to 200 a short time ago in 2014 and I have to say that it is with great pleasure that I can report that the membership number for this association has now reached 222 members, an increase of 60 members. Our membership of roads where we have members has increased as well from 50 roads last year to 60, an increase of 10.

As far as I can tell, judging by other residents membership numbers that exist in the London Borough of Redbridge we can proudly boast to be one of the biggest if not the biggest residents association in Redbridge. We are certainly one of the few residents associations that can say that we are adding new members almost every week. If I do not personally recruit a new member every week, I feel disappointed. My mandate in this role is to increase the membership base and broaden our coverage of roads. So far so good, but the hard work and journey must continue.

Why do we need a big membership base? It is important that we continue to grow and recruit new members so we become or are more representative of the areas we serve as a residents association. The more members we have the louder our voice is, the more united we are as a community in tackling an issue and a force to be reckoned with in the Seven Kings and Newbury Park areas.

My target for 2014/15 is to increase the membership form 222 to 272 over the next 12 months. To do so, I need your help! We all know, a neighbour or a friend that lives in Seven Kings and / Newbury Park. I would like to encourage you all to speak to your neighbour(s) and or friends and ask them to join us. I can email you copies of membership forms for you to forward on to your neighbours/friends/contacts. I cannot recruit NEW members all on my own. The increase in membership is a credit to this committee in their support and to some of you in your support in the local neighbourhoods and at community events in raising our profile and recruiting new members, to which I thank you all. Just think, if we recruited one NEW member each, we would double the membership to 400 members at a stroke, now that would be an achievement!

PRESS & PUBLICITY REPORT. Mark Kennedy.

I have covered the role of Press & Publicity for the last 12 months. During this time the following has been achieved:

· Sponsored Newbury Park Lift Campaign Sheet –

Printed and distributed to all residents association members.

· Working with Peter Robinson, lead Campaign Co-ordinator on our committee, together he and I managed to persuade over 80 people to come out in support of the Lift campaign at Newbury Park station. Amongst those present was local MPs Lee Scott, Ilford North Mike Gapes, Ilford south Roger Evans, GLA member for Havering & Redbridge and of course the VIP’s our members. All came out for our protest in July 2013 last year for a photo shoot. I was a great turnout and demonstrated a united community spirit.

· Press Release and Photo re: Newbury Park Tube Lift Campaign featured in Ilford Recorder, Yellow Advertiser, Woodford Recorder and Wanstead & Woodford Guardian in mid July 2013, which was great publicity for the association.

On the Letters Page for Community comments of the Ilford Recorder we received a name credit as a SKNPRA residents association from Ron Jefferies, Chairman of Aldborough Hatch Defence Association, which is another local residents association serving residents in Aldborough Road North where he wrote in support of us on the Newbury Park lift campaign.

Local Radio station, TIME 107.5 FM also covered the campaign story and interviewed myself and Roger Evans, GLA Member for Havering & Redbridge which was broadcast on Saturday 13th July 2013, the day of the photo gathering at the tube station. The interview was broadcast to listeners in Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge.

A Poster promoting the SKNPRA was very kindly displayed in the shop window of Creeds Ironmongers shop in Seven Kings to attract new members for a few weeks.

A photo gathering promoting the non-access for lifts to Seven Kings Rail Station was held on Thursday 29th August 2013 at 09:30 am organised by Transport for All, Lianna Etkind, Campaign and outreach coordinator. I popped along for this 30 minute event and took part in the photo shoot alongside Cllrs Bob Littlewood and Stuart Bellwood and a handful of supporters. The BBC London Tonight camera news team were invited along to film the event which is centred on persuading Crossrail to perform a U turn in their policy and install lifts at the station. Lianna invited me to make a speech which was filmed to be broadcast on the Thursday London Tonight News alongside Bob’s speech. Sadly, my and Bob’s speech was not broadcast on the news, but it was exciting to take part and to highlight the non-lift issue at Seven Kings and Newbury Park stations.

Press Release and Photo re: Newbury Park Tube Lift Campaign featured in Ilford Recorder, as an updated story featuring in this paper in early 2014.

Ilford Swimming Pool Campaign – Photo Shoot outside the former Swimming pool site on Saturday 28th September 2013 – both I and my youngest daughter, Isabella took part in this event, which led to the photo being published in the Ilford Recorder, sadly my quote for the SKNPRA was not published.

Table Top Sale – Saturday 10th May 2014 – Venue: St John’s Church, St John’s Road – our committee booked a table for this event and through their efforts, we were able to recruit x10 NEW Members and raised our profile at this event. Well done to all that took part!

St Peter’s Church – Craft Fayre and Flower Festival – held on Saturday 28th June 2014 - we had a stand at this event for the first time and recruited x3 NEW members and again raised our profile in the community. This event showcased our display table display board, put together by Audrey and I must give her full credit for her efforts as the display caused a great deal of interest in our association and questions too. It was a great crowd puller and this helped us engage with the public, so thank you Audrey. Additional thanks for the helpers on the day that manned the stall, Ray Alavoine, Patricia Alavoine, Peter Robinson, Jayanti Parmar, Gill Gough, Shy Choudhary, Mosharaf Ashraf, Darrell Arjoon, Masaeb Ahmad, Rodney Foster, Bob Greenfield, Christina Greenfield and Susan Samuels.

Ilford War Memorial Day Gardens Open Day – Saturday 2nd August 2014 – We had a stand booked at this event Stands included exhibitions of library activities and displays by the Ilford War Memorial Action Group, Western Front Association, Royal British Legion. We are took part in this event to recruit new members and raise awareness of our association.

Planned - Future Publicity

· On-going campaign for Lifts at Seven Kings and Newbury Park

· General publicity promoting the association

· Leaflet Deliveries to recruit new members.

YOUR COMMITTEE. We were pleased that members of last year’s committee were all willing to stand again. We welcomed new member Andy Walker onto the committee. You will know of Andy’s untiring work in the ‘Save King George Hospital’ campaign ever since the threat to close the A&E department was imminent. We will continue to support this issue.

OPEN COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Our Chairman David Stephens wishes to invite all members to our regular committee meetings so that you can see how we work, put forward suggestions and hopefully, volunteer to help in the many activities with which we are involved.

Our next committee meeting is on Monday September 1st 8pm at St Johns Church Hall. We hope you will join us !

LONDON BOROUGH OF REDBRIDGE COUNCIL MEETINGS.

As you may know, the new Redbridge Council has discontinued Area Committee meetings at which members of the public could voice issues during the Public Forum. We have made good use of this contact in the past by speaking up on your behalf, with successful results. An alternative Forum is being discussed and we await a decision in order to continue our good relationship with Council.

Now it just remains for me to wish you all a happy holiday time wherever you are going or if you are staying at home, enjoy and relax in the sun (even when it rains it’s good for the garden).

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Martyn Joseph - On My Way.

Responses to 'Airbrushed from Art History?' (3)

Richard Davey writes:

I'm finding this conversation really fascinating and helpful, particularly because I am currently trying to re-write my PhD thesis for publication, and many of these questions lie at the heart of what I was then, and am still, addressing - the taboo surrounding an artists' faith.

Fundamentally I think your project is worthwhile and important, and my comments arise on that fascinating edge where differences in nuance and emphasis can lead to development and transformation. Your considered and thoughtful responses to my own comments have provoked further reflection both about specific points and more generally.

None of the books and exhibitions that I have cited so far comprehensively address Christian influences on Modern and Contemporary Art and I am unaware of any book or exhibition that seeks to do so.

1. Do you think that a comprehensive survey is possible? I think that you are setting yourself up for a fall by an ambition that sets out to be comprehensive. It seems to me a narrow focus would allow you a better chance to realise your desire to be thorough and at the same time to raise the fundamental questions that you are seeking to address. By striving to be comprehensive you are either going to have to be so broad that your project will be full of holes, or you will never finish.

2. What do you mean by Christian influences? This is such a simple statement and yet so problematic. Do you mean influences that come from culture that are specifically Christian i.e.. the use of Christian iconography? Do you mean the essential themes that lie at the heart of Christianity- but what are those, and can we say that an influence comes from active 'Christian' influence or from the residual Christianity that underpins western society? Do you mean the faith of the artist? Or is it your own Christian faith that is being read into Modern and Contemporary art?

3. Do you mean British, French, Italian, Spanish, American art. This may seem a strange point since so much contemporary and modern art transcends geographic borders, but I think this is important when addressing the subject of faith and Christianity, because in reality attitudes to faith are fundamentally different across these different contexts. American attitudes to Faith and Christianity are very different to British 'secular' attitudes, where faith is on the back foot. The recent American presidential elections highlight this with their strong influence of faith, whereas in the upcoming general election in Britain will faith feature, or will we once again have the Blair effect - where faith and public life don't mix? And then on the continent Christian art is often tied into a Roman Catholic spirituality and integration into liturgy that is fundamentally different to British Anglicanism.

You echo Taylor's criticism of Greenberg, but I don't have a problem with Greenberg's approach - why is that? I suppose I know that when I write on an artist I am aware that I am going to be addressing it from the starting point of my own world-view, and that my reading will be coloured by that. However much I try to be open to the full range of influences that may be found in artist's work I can never achieve a truly objective stance, I will always see a spiritual perspective and this will obscure some of the secular perspectives that may equally legitimately exist in it as well. Again, in your review of Traces du sacre your implicit criticism is based upon what I take as an objection to their position that argues that the secularization of society delivered artists from their subordination to the Church and that, as a result, the traces of spirituality found in both Modern and Contemporary Art are ones that stand outside of organised religion (and Christianity, in particular). I may not completely agree with the origin being secularisation but I think that they are fundamentally right. In my many years of doing research in this area the majority of artists I have met say very early on 'I am not religious', and you have to accept this position. They are very rarely church goers and often stand outside organised religion. If I had used Church membership ,or adherence to a specific organised religion as a criteria for inclusion I would have had a very limited pool of artists of a quality worth addressing. My reflection over the years is that for artists their engagement with their faith and spiritual impulse occurs within the loneliness of the creative process, whereas non-artists do so within the parameters of organised religious practice and membership. The artists I have met who have an incredibly deep faith and highly developed spiritual awareness support Linda Woodhead's arguments that faith in the uk is becoming increasingly implicit rather than explicit, something carried out privately rather than within the bounds of traditional associational religion. Cecil Collins was an artist of incredible faith, but very explicitly anti-religion.

I remember Peter Eugene Ball's frustration and anger at being labelled a secret Christian by Keith Walker in his Images and Idols book. Peters' reaction was, 'I am not a Christian, and I know that I am not a Christian because I do not believe in the resurrection'. Yet Peter is a person of deep spiritual awareness and faith which shapes his life. Your comments about your friend Alan Stewart's reading of Andres Serrano bring this to mind. We should be honest in what we are doing. If we are doing theology through art lets say that, rather than trying to imply that our reading is necessarily implicit within the work. Is his reading true to the embodiment of the work? I think the work is what it is, an image of a crucifix suspended in a golden liquid, which we later discover is urine. That image says nothing more than that. The reading into that by the viewer is valid, but not embodied in the work. Similarly an image of the crucifixion is nothing more than paint pushed around a surface to make marks that depict a man on a cross. Any theological interpretation occurs in the viewer's mind not in the work. Paint cannot speak of resurrection, it can provoke emotions that can evoke a sensation of joy or despair etc, but resurrection etc and Christian theology are not emotions, they are concepts that are formed in the mind, constructs of theology. I actually am not certain that art can be 'Christian', it is the interpretation of the subject matter that is Christian.

I suppose I am interested in the faith that an artist has, and how this is unconsciously reflected in the sensibilities that ripple the surface of an art work. I remember being at an ACE event chaired by Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton where she asked the panel does an artist have to have faith to use Christian iconography or work for the church. The answer has to be no, and that is important, but what gets hidden is the possibility that artists with faith may explore the subject differently and that this needs to also be recognised. But we don't want to ask about an artist's faith. We are too influenced by the de-humanising debates that Dan Siedell is currently discussing on his blog, where we are suspicious of allowing an artist's intentions into a work of art. But there is a difference for me between artists having specific agendas which they want to put into a work, and the influence of the integral world view that an artist brings into the creative process, often without conscious thought.

Where did this denigration of an artist's faith begin? I think one place we can discern it is in Art Sacre, and their belief that the quality of an artist is more important than their faith. We see this recapitulated in Sister Wendy and Keith Walker who both use artists for their fame rather than their faith.

Another question about the airbrushing for me is whether the airbrushing is about Christian influences themselves. Figurative art of a certain kind, abstract art of a certain kind, and other types of artistic practice and concern have also been airbrushed out. Beauty is treated with suspicion by art history and theory, the sublime has become secularised, mystery has been denigrated. Artists continue to address these themes but critical theory, which in the uk has been dominated by continental post-modern philosophy, finds them problematic. The visual has been denigrated by schools of art history and cultural theory dominated by philosophy, semiotics, psychology rather than visual aesthetics cf. Bourriaud's relational aesthetics which underpinned altermodern at Tate Britain recently. But artists exploring the spiritual tend to naturally explore these taboo territories of the sublime, beauty, wonder etc. I think art history ignores Christian influences not out of an anti-Christian agenda, but because the themes that underpin 'Christian' spiritual art, and that absorb artists intrigued by a spiritual world fall outside the themes that are dominant in the art world at present, where the world is a hyper-real, space of irony - something which is antipathetic to a perspective intrigued by transcendent possibilities.

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Jan Garbarek & The Hilliard Ensemble - Parce Mihi Domine.

Other Greenbelt blogs

For other perspectives on Greenbelt, in addition to my own ramblings, click here, here and here. Dave Walker has a good round-up of blogs at the Church Times blog which can be found here. There are also several Church Times articles on the festival including a full review (currently subscriber only).

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Ed Sheeran - Open Your Ears.

Support for the Dave Walkers

For the latest on support for Dave Walker in the SPCK/SSG saga and the 'cease and desist' notices sent by Mark Brewer of SSG click here and here. The 'cease and desist' notices, one of which Sam Norton has posted, appear to be attempts to prevent free speech on matters that are on the public record. Dave, and now Sam Norton, need support over these attacks on their right to free speech.

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Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line.

Yet another Dave Walker

A legal threat has been made against cartoonist Dave Walker by Mark Brewer to force him to take down his reporting and comment about the SPCK bookshop chain’s takeover and management by the Society of Saint Stephen the Great (SSG). As Matt Wardman has pointed out this is about the right to discuss the issue in public and not have anyone try and close down debate by having (or claiming to have) access to a legal sanction that prevents freedom of speech.

Who's Posted about Mark Brewer's Cease and Desist Notice to Dave Walker

1. St Aidan to Abbey Manor - David Keen - Vicar (Yeovil)


2. The Wardman Wire - Matt Wardman (audio of BBC interview from 12/2007)


3. Gentle Wisdom - Peter Kirk


4. Bishop Alan's Blog - Alan Wilson, Area Bishop of Buckingham


5. Blogula-Rasa - Ginny (detailed - worth a read)


6. Metacatholic - Doug Chaplin - Vicar (West Midlands)


7. Of course, I could be wrong - Madpriest - Priest (somewhere in England)


8. Seven whole days - Scott Gunn - Parish Priest (Rhode Island) and Lambeth Conference.


9. Thinking Anglicans - Simon Kershaw - Cambridge, England (likely to follow further press coverage)


10. The Jewish Blog Network - How to recover deleted pages. Firefox Resurrect Pages add-on.


11. Lingamish - Blogger Bludgeoned by Bozos - David Ker - Mozambique. Kudos for the cartoon above.


12. [Update: 23/07/2008] SPCK Watch - Gagging attempts by Mark Brewer - SPCK Watch. (Somewhere in Europe). Whole blog devoted to SPCK saga.


13. [Update: 23/07/2008] Elizaphanian - We are all Dave Walkers now - Sam Norton, Rector of West Mersea, Essex.
    Suggests that we reposts Dave's ex-posts from Google cache.


14. [Update: 23/07/2008]Mad Hare - Solidarity post - SPCK/SSG and Dave Walker (New Mexico : United States).

Any more for any more?

Lambeth's Cartoonist in residence

For those interested in keeping up with the various goings on at the Lambeth Conference (both serious and humourous) then Dave Walker's Church Times blog promises to be a good way of keeping up with what is going down.

He'll be at Canterbury in his 'Cartoonist in residence' role which will commence on Wednesday and plans to post a Lambeth Diary the blog - the conference as seen from his special drawing tent.

His most recent blog includes reactions and responses to Gene Robinson's sermon last Sunday plus a link to a video of the sermon in full.

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Leonard Cohen - Bird On A Wire.

1 cafe, 2 exhibitions & a coincidence

We've been into London today sampling the Visual Art exhibitions in the Pentecost Festival. We started with the Social Issues & Our Response photographic display at the Cafe Eterno in Covent Garden where the above photos were taken.

This is a modest but varied exhibition including scenes from SOULINTHECITY, a Compassion project, Hertford stns (my contribution) and a Miss Pole Dancing competition. Active response is contrasted with the enduring challenge of sin and the efficacy of our responses questioned.

While enjoying a healthy and appetising lunch at the Cafe, we opened up a leaflet about a performance at the Cafe from the previous night only to find a photo and write up of our good friend Mandy Stone. Mandy had given her testimony at the Cafe following a performance of Does The Shoe Fit? What a coincidence that we had both had a link with the Cafe over the same weekend!

From there I went to Westminster Central Hall for the Gifts exhibition that was a part of Pentecost People. Here I found a much more varied exhibition than I had anticipated including installations, ceramics, photographics and both abstract and representational paintings. The exhibition had been curated by Alison Lilley Berrett using artists linked to the Ark T Centre in Cowley, Oxford. The Art T Centre is a creative arts project opened in 1997 at the initiative of a church and a group of artists committed to creating space for the arts. It believes that creativity through the arts can allow people to discover new things about themselves and others and so unlock the potential for change. The Centre has six resident artists who, as well as developing their own work, provide workshops enabling others to discover their creativity sometimes for the first time.

Sue-Jane Mott's ceramic installations instantly attracted the eye. 130 ceramic bottle forms were shaped to form a pathway symbolising our life journeys while 24 Golden Bowls drew on the image from Revelation of 24 elders offering golden bowls symbolising prayers to God. From their exterior Mott's bowls looked like fragile papier-mache constructions composed of written prayers but, with their shining metallic interiors, were solid constructions, that gleamed in the light of the room.

Clay Sinclair paints backwards in acrylics onto perspex and the results are vibrant, primal images laced with humour and questioning what we see. Alison Lilley Berrett also works in an abstract expressionist style creating meditative images reflective of core Christian themes of love, life, breath. Tim Steward's work, while popular and ubiquitous at Christian festivals, is only pleasantly decorative in its weaving of enlongated charismatic figures into abstract backdrops. Finally, Kate Cunningham had created a photographic series of still lifes that used contrasts of light and dark to explore communion and crucifixion.

Gifts revealed a diversity and energy that I had not expected to find in an exhibition at what is at base an evangelical Christian festival. This is, therefore, an exhibition of encouragement for the future and a sign of the value of artists grouping together for mutual support, critique and development.

For posts on other aspects of the Pentecost Festival see Dave Walker's Church Times blog by clicking here and here.

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onehundredhours - King Of Every Heart.

Spring Harvest (2)

I was interested to find that, as in my blog reviewing Spring Harvest, Dave Walker had also noted a number of significant changes at Spring Harvest in his Church Times blog. Walker found a less dogmatic branch of Christianity to the one he remembered from previous visits.

A couple of examples that stuck in his mind included:

• Other religions. When asked about people of other faiths in a 'heaven and hell' question and answer session the reply from the speaker surprised me with its inclusiveness. Something along the lines of "I don't know. But I think God will be more merciful than we expect him to be" (not an actual quote) "We will not regret God's decision" (an actual quote).
• Opinions about hell. Universalism, or at least 'restorative punishment' is mentioned in the Spring Harvest notes as being an alternative to eternal conscious torment or annihilation. Of the three options eternal conscious torment seemed to be the least favoured (so to speak) by the people at the front.
• He felt there was a greater willingness to leave questions unanswered, criticise past failings within the Evangelical movement and allow non-literal understandings of certain Bible passages.

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Gavin Bryars - Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.