art, theology, marxism, atheism, the mix!

One of the blogs I read regularly is entitled 'Never mind the bricolage' and is written by someone who calls himself 'Superflat'. There was a point when I had an actual name, but I can't just track it down on the blog at present. He works with students doing courses in which he discusses art and theology, (at least these topics come up regularly in his blog), and in his latest post, Criticism of Heaven he begins by writing the following...

In the Art, Cinema and Theology class we have been exploring the role of women in the arts and particularly women painters and their general absence from Western Art History. We found our way to a discussion about Frida Kahlo, inspired by the movie about her starring Selma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor.

I think that there are rich conversations to be had around her life and work, but a question came up during class about how to 'do theology with someone who is a communist and an atheist'--points that I actually think are favourable for a conversation, but somehow seemed to be a stumbling block to at least one person. I guess it all depends on how one understands what theological discourse might be--for me it encompasses at least some aspect of bringing things (anything) into dialogue and conversation. While I part company with the conclusions of the Radical Orthodoxy mob, I do like Graham Ward's idea that doing theology somehow means 'reclaiming the world'--bringing all the things once ceded to the wider culture back into contact and conversation with sacred communities and with theology. So for me Frida Kahlo offers up some major theological potentials: sexuality and gender; socialism/Marxism, theism/a-theism, pain and brokenness just to name a few.

I like that idea of 'reclaiming the world' in relation to art/theology -it resonates with a number of different writers on art and theology I've read.

Superflat has a little more to say....here.

[Bricolage is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process. The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler, the core meaning in French being, "fiddle, tinker" and, by extension, "to make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose)". In contemporary French the word is the equivalent of the English do it yourself, and is seen on large shed retail outlets throughout France. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur. Thanks, Wikipedia!]

Art and Faith Conference

Murray Rae has just announced that the organisation, STAANZ will hold a conference and associated exhibition on Art and Faith in Dunedin from July 29-30 this year. The theme of the conference is 'Tikkun Olam: To Mend the World' and the keynote speaker will be Professor Bill Dyrness from Fuller Theological Seminary.

The aim of the conference is to encourage conversation between artists and theologians around the theme of art and faith.

More details on the conference website.

Pass this on to anyone who may be interested, especially artists.

Take Overs, Journeys, Arts, Theology

It takes nothing for the 'pseud' to take over language; church jargon itself is full of it.

A colleague at work passed on the link to Andrew Rumsey's piece on the word, 'Journey' to me today, and I thought it was worth sharing. Rumsey writes with nifty English wit, and a surreal imagination that sometimes slides off the edge of intelligibility. I've been reading a few of his other pieces (there are only about two a year on the Ship of Fools site) and in general find him good company.

Having attended Lynne Baab's Knox Inaugural Lecture on Monday, which was about the Arts and Christianity, I was interested to find that Rumsey's first piece on the list, written back back in 2000, is about the same subject: how do the arts and Christianity mesh together without stomping on each other's toes?

He talks about the group, Theology Through the Arts (the link he gives is now out of date), so I went exploring a little further, found that this group's work is now 'pursued' under the aegis of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts (which kind of makes it feel as though it's been taken over by the academics - or even hunted down?).

Theology Through the Arts' first major achievement was a festival of the arts entitled Sounding the Depths. You can still see the original programme online. Sounding the Depths was the culmination of the first phase of Theology Through the Arts. It aimed to draw together the strands of the project that [had]been most fruitful over the [previous] three years, and present them publicly in the form of a week of multi-media events.

Their second phase spanned from 2001 to 2008, when the group had its theological home at the University of St Andrews, and its church-related work at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. From there it seems to have shifted to Duke. During their second phase they engaged in rigorous academic research, as well as pursuing more fully the implications of 'theology through the arts' for the Church's engagement with culture and for 'grass roots' education.

To me this all sounds very academic - almost the antithesis of what the arts are about. And their primary aim was listed as:

to discover and demonstrate ways in which the arts can contribute towards the renewal of Christian theology

In the process, they sought:

• to find ways in which the arts can contribute to a sensitive and rigorous engagement of the Church with modern and postmodern culture
• to generate, through the arts, new methods of Christian education for use in the Church and wider community

Am I being picky, or does this all seem a bit too ivory tower for its own good? I know there are plenty of thinking artists - but do they think in the way academics think? Or is much/most of their thinking more of the reflective-active kind? Some artists, I suspect, don't 'think' in either sense; they work almost intuitively and make mistakes until they find what they're looking for.

Perhaps my use of the word 'theology' is too limited. But I'd hate to feel that art was being ramshackled into some clinical overcoat that ill-fitted it. Art, I suspect, is a much broader theology than what we mostly think of as theology - long-winded words and difficult by-ways -and probably doesn't want to be narrowed down into seminars and conferences and theses.

On the Duke site there's a summary of a lecture Nicholas Wolterstorff (author of Art in Action) gave: With analytical power and winsome directness, Wolterstorff questioned assumptions that often mark the conversation between theology and the arts today. In particular, he drew attention to the enormous changes in thinking about the arts that came about in the late eighteenth century – the appearance of the ‘fine’ arts as objects of ‘disinterested contemplation’, the notion that this represents art ‘coming into its own’, and, not least, the religious aura that art assumed to itself: art becomes the transcendent, social ‘other’, abstracted from the messy materiality of space and time.

This, he stressed is only one way of thinking about the arts, but not the way. He urged his audience to re-discover a wider vision that could embrace forms of art typically demoted (such as ‘mere’ craft), and that could therefore re-frame the theology-arts discussion for the years to come.

Sounds good - but what about the 'distinguished' lecture listed on the same webpage?: Early Visual Art as Patristic Theology: the Trinity, Christology, and the Economy of Salvation in Pictorial Form.

Does that sound like something the average artist would want looking over their shoulder while they were working?

Praying in the Phone Booth

The Pastor's Weekly Briefing e-letter alerted me to Dylan Mortimer's prayer/phone booths in New York.

The two booths could almost be taken for typical phone booths except for a few unusual features:

the side panels depict folded hands;
the word, 'prayer' appears instead of 'telephone;'
there's a flip-down kneeler.

Mortimer, who is a recent graduate of NY’s School of Visual Arts Masters (MFA) program, says, “My goal is to spark dialogue about a topic often avoided, and often treated cynically by the contemporary art world,” says Mortimer. “I employ the visual language of signage and public information systems, using them as a contemporary form of older religious communication systems: stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, church furniture, etc. I balance humor and seriousness, sarcasm and sincerity, in a way that bridges a subject matter that is often presented as heavy or difficult.”

Why not celebrate?

Last month I wrote about an article by Mark Judge on a spontaneous celebration of music at the NEA Heritage Awards. The following letter to Books and Culture magazine affirms the value of such celebration and wonders why the Church doesn't celebrate her own artistic heritage. The letter was written by artist Makoto Fujimura

I was delighted to read the article "A Holy Joy" by Mark Judge about the NEA Heritage Award celebration at the Strathmore Music Center. As a National Council member for the last six years, I have seen these small miracles regularly in the proceedings of the endowment, and the story of the turnaround of the NEA itself is miraculous, made possible by the visionary and faithful leadership of Dana Gioia, a former business executive and a nationally recognized poet.

As Judge noted, the arts can surprise us by giving us a glimpse into the transcendent: This influence into the broader culture is precisely why the church needs to continue to encourage her congregants to preserve, create, and celebrate culture. Instead of merely complaining about or boycotting art, we need to create art that reflects our values and faith, undergirding freedom and commonwealth, the twin engines of democracy. Many times, listening to the grant reports of the NEA's remarkable staff—experts in music, literature, visual arts, media, dance, and education—I have come away with a renewed conviction that the church could very well lead in the conversation on diversity, excellence, and transcendent art. But the reality is that the church seldom celebrates her own heritage, honors her artists, or gives public acknowledgement of her legacy. I hope that this article will encourage all readers to experience the arts in their own local arenas and, most important, recognize and champion the artists in their own congregations. Perhaps we can even go further and celebrate artists outside our faith perspective, to give recognition to the common-grace splendor of our God, who is himself an artist.

The best of creation

Here's a quote some might agree with, some might dispute. I don't know that Mr Marshall is saying he's sure of this, or whether it's something he hopes for.

Our works, here and now, are not all transitory. The good that we have done will not simply disappear and be forgotten. This world is not a passing and futile phase; it will be taken up in God's new world. Our good buildings, our great inventions, our acts of healing, our best writings, our creative art, our finest clothes, our greatest treasures will not simply pass away. If they represent the finest works of God's image-bearers, they will adorn the world to come.

Paul Marshall
Heaven is Not My Home