A great video slide show of “500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art.” Included are several religious figures and goddesses, in a move that animates (in both ways) the paintings. HT: Michael Dubitzky.
Hinduism Today’s podcast from publisher Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami’s editorial focuses on the Hindu design system called vastu, which he calls “widespread and even faddish.” He also stresses the importance for Hindu adults to paint from time to time, amongst other experiences.
Pastor Mark Driscoll talks about idolatry in The Mars Hill Church podcast under the title “Examining Two Enemies of the Gospel.” Driscoll addresses people’s tendencies to try to get the True God to conform to their notions of false Gods. He is shocked when a woman standing beside a Hindu altar covered with feathers and chicken blood tells him she can’t come to America, because of all the idolatry. But this fits into his view that everyone worships, even if they aren’t Christian–even atheists, who might worship their science or ideas.
“This is the one thing I’d take with me to a desert island,” says Nasser David Khalili of his book The Timeline History of Islamic Art and Architecture, which he says he wrote “because there was a lack of information out there. No one has ever done a visual history of Islam that is this comprehensive before. It shows what a unifying force culture can be.”
[The Australian]
In Marbling and Music: Performing Sufism at a Turkish Tekke, MFA Boston showed how “the New World … joined in [the] process of introspection by way of the Islamic arts.”
[Today’s Zaman]
Much has been written about Rembrandt’s religious art, but here is a gem: “Rembrandt painted each religious character’s face to reflect the burden of spiritual and also emotional conflicts.”
[American Chronicle]
Abyssal writes “I was unable to incorporate and [sic] Christian imagery into the header. I’ve been surprised just how little there is online in the way of Christian art. If you know any links throw them my way.” You are welcome to come back here as often as you want, Abyssal, to see great Christian art online.
My article Poetic Art And Biblical Illustration: A Study In Contrasts is in The Jewish Press this week. It attends to two exhibits at the YU Museum, Poets’ Portraits: Lines For My Image: Drawings and Sculpture by Zvi Lachman (through August 30) and The Illuminated Torah: Yonah Weinrib, The entire Book of Exodus, Illustrated (through May 27). Beside Weinrib’s work, Lachman’s looks particularly interesting.
“Falwell Is Dead,” writes Andrew Sullivan, “But the threat of Tinky Winky lives on…”
[Daily Dish, linking Times Online]
“I just want to thank, sincerely, the local secular humanist group,” says Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum, of his critics, who helped publicize the museum.
[Christian Post, see also: NPR, Religion News Blog, Washington Post]
“Knowledge of Buddhist philosophy is essential for a Thangka painter. With the institutions of Buddhist learning in Tibet growing fewer each day, the number of Tibetan Thangka painters in Tibet is coming down,” says Buddhist painter Sonam Tsering, who believes Thangka is at risk of extinction.
[Reuters]
Pre-Raphaelite art (see “Mary Magdalene” above, LA Times) is on exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum. “Pre-Raphaelite artists handled paint with great technical exactitude as they gravitated toward biblical, mythical and literary themes, infusing them with a contemporary, local sense of immediacy,” writes Leah Ollman. “Mary has a delicate English-rose complexion and long auburn hair that gleams against the background’s deep emerald patterning, reminiscent of both a medieval tapestry and the later wallpaper designs of William Morris.”
[LA Times]
In the middle of a fascinating piece on angels in Islam, Banu Salleh writes, “Angels were created from light before the creation of human beings, and thus their graphic or symbolic representation in Islamic art is rare. Nevertheless, they are generally beautiful beings with wings as described in Muslim scripture.”
[Sri Kandeh]
Mizane Gallery (VA) opens with “An Alternative Space: Islamic Art in America” on June 30.
[Newswire PR]
Meet the first al-Quran Mushaf Malaysia. “It is the centre for the development of Islamic art of international standards. Many may not realise that Islam and art can go together as long as it is based on the al-Quran,” says Datuk Abdul Latiff Mirasa. “We are showcasing the copying of the al-Quran to Muslims as well as non-Muslims. We want to promote the beauty of Islam through art.”
[nst.com]
Tonight, Charlie Rose aired a July 2006 interview with co-founder of the Neue Galerie Ronald Lauder. In the interview, Lauder (son of Estée and Joseph Lauder of Estée Lauder Companies, and recent candidate for president of the World Jewish Congress) calls his newly acquired Klimt painting, which perhaps would be more comfortable in a folk art museum than a gallery, his Mona Lisa. He also said he considers Nazi looted art the final victims of WWII, and that he would be happy to turn over any of his paintings to anyone who could walk into his gallery and prove the work was hers/his.
Lauder also took a shot at European museums and said they were not doing good enough jobs at identifying and returning Nazi-looted art, whereas American institutions (of which the Neue is surely one) are doing a “great” job.
In response to Rose’s questions (which are always on target), Lauder said he learned about art by comparing paintings to each other like he would compare companies he bought. Indeed the business man in him came out when he tried to interpret the paintings and instead spoke a whole lot about feelings and about symbols that might or might not suggest an affair, that might or might not refer to Masonic forms, that might or might not have relevance to Klimt’s life.
Lauder also made a point of mentioning that one Klimt painting shows Bloch-Bauer looking at the viewer (seductive), while another looks “over your shoulder.” This sort of interpretation, which Lauder tries to infuse with historical significance, is silly, as this depends of course on how high one hangs the paintings. Both look to me like they are looking past the viewer, and Lauder’s talk of Bloch-Bauer’s disfigured hand is also perhaps better taken in the larger context–hands are hard to paint, and artists often mask them to make their lives easier. Rembrandt is said to have charged more for them.
Lauder, of course, seems to be one of the good guys in the battle to restore looted collections (he is rumored to have paid a good deal of money in lawyers fees to E. Randol Schoenberg), but the interview left a lot to be desired in the way of analysis of the works.
In February 2006, Jytte Klausen wrote “the Danish government and media who were spoiling for a culture war had failed to recognize the depth of Muslims’ feelings and did not know what they had bargained for” in the cartoon scandal. Now, Klausen sticks by that statement, as “an increasing number of Danes want to restore more tolerant Danish values and are looking to a new political rescuer — a Muslim immigrant, who was himself caught up in the explosive cartoon controversy.”
[Salon]
Columbia University art historian James Beck (pictured, photo NY Times) has died at age 77. Beck famously referred to the “ruinous conservation” of art, including Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. “As with any face-lift, the treatments were changing the look of the original forever, and I objected to it,” said Beck, who also proclaimed the Met’s Duccio Madonna and Child a fake.
[NY Times]
“Color is the new black,” reports Faiza Saleh Ambah on Saudi women’s cloaks. “Nothing in Islam imposes black on us. And I decided to make a brown abaya for myself,” said Manal al-Sharif, an editor of the Jiddah-based paper al-Madina.
[Washington Post]
Compassion, new works by Terresa Ford is scheduled to appear at Unity Gallery in Buffalo. “The works in this exhibition focus on the commonalities between religions and are in support of social and spiritual transformation,” Ford says. Works include a juxtaposition of Kadijah (first wife of Mohammad) and Mary “to elucidate the reverence for women in both Islam and Christianity” and works with writings in Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew. “COMPASSION will offer Muslims, Christians and Jews, and all those with an interest in religious art, a fresh insight into this essential aspect of humanity.”
[ArtDaily.com]
The missing 1,000-pound cow in the room at Ballarat Fine Art Gallery’s How Now Cow is the sacred cow, though the gallery’s site shows a piece from the Book of Hours, an ox from The Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1518).
[ABC]
Left: Cow Art in Edinburgh
Gunmen in Baghdad have murdered Muslim calligrapher Khalil al-Zahawi, about whom it was said, “anyone in Iraq who wanted to be considered proficient in Arabic calligraphy had to have his seal of approval.” His crime? Creating art.
[Religion News Blog]
In this day in history, as WIRED records, da Vinci’s Last Supper was restored (again) in 1999, and “some purists objected to continuing to refer to it a da Vinci masterpiece, arguing that nothing of the original remained.”
[WIRED]
Think the Bible stinks? Try the new Christian perfume (made, of course, with frankincense and myrrh), Virtue, which only asks that you “hold it in Sacred regard as a means to train yourself to readily contact your Spiritual Self.” And just for kicks, check out this Talmudic discussion of urine in the temple.
[Daily Dish, via Martin Marty Center]
Why does Philip Roth (right) have no Nobel, wonders the Guardian. Anti-semitism anyone?
[Guardian]
Frank Gehry (6th paragraph) vs. Tiffany, round one.
[LA Times]
As some scientists fear Global Warming (e.g. hurricane causing) , others worry about the Creation Museum [insert scary music]. Money quote: “It’s not just bad science; it’s bad Bible reading … They’re assuming the world that they know (now) is exactly what the world was then. That’s an enormous assumption.”
[Religion News Blog]
Move Over, Thomas Merton, writes Andrew Sullivan, “The top ten spiritual moments on American Idol.”
[Daily Dish]
Anton Aoun, whose art I mentioned here, wrote back (under the name Tony Bushbush) in response to my questions. According to his Youtube profile, he was born in the Holy City of Bethlehem.
Since my early years of childhood I showed a great talent and interest in Arts. I made my first drawing at age of 13. Since that age I participated in several Art Exhibitions. Also, I have done several paintings on walls, such as, The Church of the Nativity, Jesus Christ, Version Mary , Oriental people, Holy Communion and some places from the Holy Land like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tiberias, Nazareth. My drawing and paintings mostly of religious, planets, culture, nature, passion, anthropological and surrealism subjects. Those are some of my Planets art work.”
MW: To what extent do you consider your work religious per se?
AA: Well, I believe that my paintings are affected [by] my religion. I have been raised up by a religious family. I even receive spiritual inspiration with mysterious messages to draw. If you are interested I can send you some of my old paintings when I was only a kid.
MW: How do you weigh the message against the artistic decisions?
AA: I try to put frame to my paintings into four categories; the first is the religious inspired paintings, which I try to express the mysteries and the questions I and so many others have in their hearts and minds. The second category is seen in the paintings of nature. I am so concerned with preserving the nature, especially now with the bad effects of human against it. In my paintings I show natural life, animals and plants. The third one is clustered in the beauty of the human body. I have been all my life interested and fascinated with this creature. I am aiming at communicating how graceful humans are. At the same time I have been translating the body language of the human using surrealism kind of art. The last category is a translation of my imagination and dreams of which I have been using surrealism to explain these emotional language which is extremely vague but rich of feelings that even you would stand for a while trying to realize the truth behind the lies that are covering the beauty of the world.
In Tehran studying Farsi, Harvard student Fotini Christia noticed that pedestrians ignored the numerous murals “filled with religious symbolism” througout the city depicting Grand Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, memorials to the Iran-Iraq war’s martyrs and anti-Israel and -American themes. Her photographic documentation of the murals are on view at Harvard.
[Harvard U. Gazette]
Graffiti artist Mohammed Ali posts on absurd attempts to stop his (legal) graffiti art on peace, because the letters were Arabic.
[aerosolarabic]
“Dear Jesus,” starts Didymus, “A lot of what passes for religious art tries my faith.” On not finding “representations of people whose humanity I share.”
[Notes from Didymus]
Reform Judaism recommends Nadler’s Rembrandt’s Jews for summer reading, without any indication why a four-year-old book is so timely now. (I touch on the subject in Jacob van Ruisdael Is Not Jewish.)
[Reform Judaism]
Richard Serra, whose work (above) will appear in Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years at MoMA, speaks of his Jewish mother in this Time story and this podcast from PRI Studio 360 (also here). If this is news to you that Serra is Jewish, consider of his 326,000 hits on Google, only 26,500 mention the work Jewish, and the overwhelming majority of those mentions are not about Serra. Someone add the word Jew to Wikipedia quick!
I asked Matthew Weiner, director of programming at the Interfaith Center of New York, about the destroyed mandala (see previous post). Here is what he said:
Iconia: Many of the media reports are mentioning that the mandala was meant to be destroyed anyway and that the monks have forgiven the toddler. Do you worry that however true these points are that this will cheapen the act to some people who might commit similar acts?
MW: No- the Buddhist monks are being true to their tradition, and not endorsing the activity.
Iconia: What exactly is the role of the mandala? Why is it made of sand? How symbolic are the colors and the various shapes and symbols?
MW: Basically it’s about impermanence and interconnectedness, key points to Buddhism. So the kid provides a Buddhist lesson.
Iconia: Why was it placed in an airport? Should there have been more measures to protect it?
MW: That’s for the monks to answer.
Iconia: Some bloggers are calling for donations to the monks for their forgiving responses. Where would you recommend interested parties send their donations?
MW: Tibet Fund, based in NYC.
Iconia: To what extent is the mandala an example of religious art as opposed to simply geometric form? Beyond mandalas, most people in the United States probably don’t know much about Buddhist art. What are some of the most important things going on in contemporary Buddhist art? Who are your favorite contemporary Buddhist artists?
MW: Rubin Museum of Art.
Right: The mandala before…
In NBC’s Nightly News podcast (find it here), Brian Williams reports on the Tibetan monks’ sand creation in the Kansas City airport ruined by a 3-year-old (you will have to scroll through to 20:15 to catch the story, which appears last in the program). See also WCSH6 and ABC, which reports the monks have forgiven the toddler, see also this.
Right: The mandala after…
Blog Roundup:
“At least the monks have cultivated the mindset of the fleeting nature of art, so it was no big loss.” [American Samizdat]
“My Mom would have spanked my butt right there though and it would have been all over youtube if that were around back then!” [a Jennifer on Myspace]
“As a mother, I would have been completely mortified and apologetic if one of my boys did this. To just grab your child and leave, what a bitch!” [The one and only Angie]
“Monks are bald, so they couldn’t rip their hair out. But were they angry? Did they curse? No. They simply smiled and started over.” [Kansascity.com]
“I have to say i respect the hell out of the monks for their gentle global view. I’m sending them a little check. You should too.” [Buzz Words]
“That’s it you guys, I’m buying a red robe and shaving my head.” [Outdoorzy.com]
“…in typical Tibetan monk fashion, they simply smiled and started over. Which is probably a better reaction than I would’ve had: drop kicking the baby through a plate glass window while screaming ‘DIE!’” [Geekologie]
“Of course, since they destroy the mandala themselves when it is complete, having it ruined early on is no doubt easy to align with their beliefs.” [NonStop Chatter]
Sometimes there are irresistible clips that I can’t help but post, which leave me reaching for religious art angles. Woody interviewing Graham is one such set of clips. Best lines are Woody calling his worst sin ever having impure thoughts about Linkletter and comparing abstinence before marriage to obtaining a license without a learner’s permit. The art angle is the discussion about people being created in God’s image. (HT: Michael Dubitzky)
In part two, Woody agrees to go to one of Graham’s services if Graham comes to one of his movies. He also tells Graham he could be easily converted if promised a robe and wings in the afterlife, because he is a pushover. Graham tells Woody he would make a good religious leader, because some of the greatest sinners have become the greatest leaders, and because of his ability to communicate (i.e. his art).
As Garrison Keillor points out, there are two important (for our purposes) birthdays today: Robert Zimmerman (better known as Bob Dylan) and Michael Chabon, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. As Keillor quotes, Chabon’s second novel (which never was) was about:
utopian dreamers, ecological activists, an Israeli spy, a gargantuan Florida real estate deal, the education of an architect, the perfect baseball park, Paris, French cooking, and the crazy and ongoing dream of rebuilding the Great Temple in Jerusalem. It was about loss — lost paradises, lost cities, the loss of the Temple, the loss of a brother to AIDS; and the concomitant dream of Restoration or Rebuilding.
The current issue of the Art a Gogo podcast addresses GalleryPlayer, which broadcasts “the world’s finest HD art and photography to big screens in homes and offices around the globe via cable, satellite, the Internet, DVD’s and private networks.” And as the Art a Gogo folks point out, GalleryPlayer even has Kinkade.
[Art a GoGo]
David Packwood has recently added ‘Art of the Day’ on his Google homepage, and he suggests you do the same. The pages come from Art and the Bible.
[Art History Today ]
My Contemplations takes “a short look [with ’synchroblog’] at the relationship and conversation between theology and the medium of film, but especially seeing film as an art form, and then, maybe, also seeing theology as a form of art.”
[My Contemplations]
New Jewish Time: Jewish Culture in the Era of Secularism, a 5-volume encyclopedia, “examines secular Jewish culture over the last 200 years.”
[Ha’aretz]
My article Bible Porn: Richard McBee’s X-Rated Biblical Paintings appears in this issue of New Voices.
Left: McBee stands beside his painting of Joseph and Potifar’s wife. ‘Jacob’ appears in the top right corner.
“Men are driven by amazingly similar desires,” McBee said in interview. “I am interested in the all-too-human [sexual] drive we share with our patriarchs and all those who have come before us.”
(See also McBee’s paintings Judah and Tamar and Joseph and Potifar’s Wife, which appears in the picture above.)
Interestingly, not only does McBee not see his works, however sexual, as pornographic, but he even views them as feminist in a way:
But to McBee, who defines pornography as that in which the “main or sole purpose is for the sexual stimulation of the viewer,” his depictions of sexuality are something else entirely. Though his representation of women surely leaves room for criticism, McBee maintains their feminist credibility. “The Torah is screaming the importance of women who demand importance, who demand a role,” he says. “Potifar’s wife doesn’t even have a name, but the Torah understands by putting her in such a position that she demands a voice. That’s what’s so important about these stories–sexuality as a venue to feminine entitlement. Without Tamar you would not have [King] David. Without Potifar’s wife, you would not have Joseph’s children.”
Pressed on the matter of his paintings’ feminist properties, McBee explained the paintings are primarily from a male point of view, though he is currently working on a series on the Trials of Sarah, which “is attempting to see that narrative from her perspective, as best as a man might be able to.”
“I hope to do more work that gives Tamar and Potifar’s wife a real voice,” he adds. “It is important to note that in the narratives themselves both women wield their sexuality as a means to further spiritual and dynastic goals.”
UPDATE: 3/3/2009 I see New Voices has changed their archives and the link doesn’t work any longer, so here’s the piece as I submitted it:
Tamar Sutra: Richard McBee’s X-Rated Biblical Paintings
By Menachem Wecker
Although Bible thumpers are considered the most vocal proponents of censorship, if they turned their critical eyes upon their own Bible and eliminated the narratives about violence, sex, dangerous substances, dishonesty, genocide, crimes against humanity and sacrilege, all that would remain are the words “In the beginning.” Indeed, many private Jewish schools seek a hybrid form of gagging their biblical cake and eating it too when they skip erotic sections of the text, most notably the two consecutive tales of Judah and Tamar (Gen. 38) and Joseph and Potifar’s wife (Gen. 39).
Orthodox, Jewish painter, Richard McBee (he signs in Hebrew, Macabee) seeks out those very texts in his art. “Men are driven by amazingly similar desires,” he told New Voices in a phone interview. “I am interested in the all too human drive we share with our patriarchs and all those who have come before us.”
McBee’s “Hop on Pop” shares nothing but a name with Dr. Seuss’ children’s literature. The painting, which evokes a work by R. B. Kitaj, portrays the biblical tale of the daughters of Lot (Abraham’s “brother’s son”), who erroneously conclude they are the only two women alive and set about repopulating the world with their father. Kitaj paints Lot’s daughters actually mounting Lot, who stares straight at his daughter-lover with open eyes, albeit glazed over by drunkenness.
In “Hop on Pop,” Lot’s daughters cover their faces with masks, because “they had to put something between them and their personalities.” To McBee’s brush, the sisters anticipate the Holocaust. “We understand the plight of these women, who felt this terror of annihilation,” he says. “I have no shame about the paintings I’ve done of them. They do what they have to do with this … we have to do something radical to preserve the species.”
At a recent opening of his new studio in Long Island City (his studio is actually numbered 613, although McBee denies choosing it on that basis), McBee showed his works based on the stories of Judah and Tamar and Joseph and his master’s wife. McBee’s Joseph is a Hassid – “I consider this issue to be contemporary” – which catches many viewers off guard.
McBee is quick to note all of Jacob’s 12 sons were righteous, so seeing Judah stopping by the local brothel or street prostitute raises eyebrows. “That very incident is the point of the painting,” he says. “All it’s doing is taking the story of the Torah and putting in it a modern context … This is the holy torah not my 20th century perversion.”
Although he admits the piece could be interpreted as accusing religious Jews, McBee stresses the work aims for the opposite position. “You see? Religious Jews are a lot like everyone else, that’s why we need a Torah.”
One of McBee’s Joseph paintings catches Joseph hovering over his nude mistress, looking over his shoulder at a reflection of himself or an image of his father (as the Midrash suggest) in a mirror. In a second one, Joseph buttons his pants as his lover hands him his tzitzit (“Jacob” is again present), ambiguously suggesting either restraint or that Joseph actually committed adultery. And in another yet, Joseph cowers in a corner in front of a large woman in a slip and boots, who looks ready to slap Joseph (again in front of his father’s image). “Sexuality is the common bond that we share with Judah and Joseph,” he said. “He’s Yosef ha’tzadik [Joseph the Righteous] by a hair’s breath.”
But to McBee that sexuality is not pornographic, in which the “main or sole purpose is for the sexual stimulation of the viewer.” Far from being an objectification of women, McBee’s art is feminist. “The Torah is screaming the importance of women who demand importance, who demand a role,” he says. “Potifar’s wife doesn’t even have a name, but the Torah understands by putting her in such a position that she demands a voice. That’s what’s so important about these stories – sexuality as a venue to feminine entitlement. Without Tamar you would not have David. Without Potifar’s wife, you would not have Joseph’s children.”
I asked McBee if he would be comfortable showing this work in a synagogue. “Sure,” he said, “but I don’t think it would be vice versa.”
“Sometimes in criticising [sic] artists, we might actually be stoning prophets,” observes urbanmonk, “By barring any expression of negetivity, or glancing over outlandish or controversial artistic expressions with a narrowly slitted moral eye, we cut off something vital from our humanity and from our spirituality.”
[Supermarketmonkey]
On May 8, American Ambassador to Kuwait Richard LeBaron toured the [American Mission Hospital in Kuwait City with Sheikha Hussah Sabah Salem Al-Sabah, director general of Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah–”a cultural institution that encompasses the world-renowned Al-Sabah Collection of Islamic art that is on loan to the State of Kuwait under the auspices of the National Council for Culture Arts & Letters”–as guide.
[Kuwait Times]
Right: Artist Gitl Braun with Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green
With the argument “We are all Eve’s daughters,” Orthodox Jews are meeting new immigrant Muslim Bengali women through art in London’s East End.
[East London Advertiser]
“Would it mean all I could do is write worship songs? Am I severely limited if I give up music to God?” wonders Dan Chang in a discussion about Francis A. Schaeffer’s Art and the Bible. Dan’s answer? “…if I were to truly believe in God and realize who he is and what he has given me, I should gladly give in return everything in me - including music … Art begins with the way you live your life, and for me, music should be a reflection of that change.”
[Daniel’s Loft]
“Don’t sing, write, laugh. Only live in fear.” — From a placard read during a protest in Mumbai on May 16, quotes Born on a Cusp, “To a foreigner like me, it is sad. Because you witness these things side-by-side with signs of progress, and it boggles the mind the way archaic thinking can still ram its way through.”
[Born on a Cusp]
Offstumped on the artist’s “Right to Revisit”:
Offstumped Bottomline: If Vadodara is too prudish for your taste then move to Mumbai and indulge yourselves. Dont begrudge Vadodara as illiberal or fascist for it is no more morally obliged to indulge your licentiousness as Mumbai is obliged to condone morality.
[Offstumped, HT: Blogger News Network]
NBC Nightly News reports on religion in the virtual life site, Second Life. See the clip on You Tube below. I will have to spend some time exploring Second Life, but perhaps NBC should have viewed the story not as one about whether online religious experience is real, but instead as one of creating religious aesthetic experience.
“What are the odds of two Catholic eccentric millionaires in such similar circumstances?” wonders FUMARE of Harry John, who “collected reams of religious art,” and Frederick Miller (of the brewery), “The art fetish seems to be a common denominator.”
[FUMARE]
Right: A poster for the Chinese Bible Exhibition in Germany (APD)
Mark Wallinger’s Via Dolorosa, “a reflection on the last hours of Christ,” bring an unusual taste of modern art to Milan’s cathedral, and is being hailed as “the first work of contemporary art permanently installed in an Italian church.”
[Spot-On]
“Do we really have to import Jewish culture from New York in order to be cutting edge?” wonders one Bostonian. As another, I couldn’t agree more.
[Jew School]
The Fifth Cultural Ties of Iran and Turkey Conference began in Tehran, with remarks like “Our ancestors, who ruled over a vast area of Islamic territory, bequeathed us a precious heritage which up until this day has created cohesion and solidarity between Mulslim nations.”
[Mehr News]
Effat College’s second Islamic Art workshop, “Geometry and Pattern: Adornment in Islamic Art” ended. The director says the program “revives our Islamic traditions and heritage and exposes our Architecture students and others to Islamic Art.”
[AME Info]
Yosl Bergner, “an Israel Prize laureate [who] is considered one of the pillars of Israeli and international Jewish art,” has put his toy art online.
[Ynet]
Arthur Szyk, “Satan Leads the Ball” (1942).
My new column on Arthur Szyk is in this week’s Jewish Press. In the piece, I interview Irvin Ungar, perhaps the greatest proponent of a Szyk revival, who is founder and CEO of Historicana and publisher of a new edition of The Szyk Haggadah (through the Arthur Szyk Society). “I don’t want to call it a crusade,” he told me over the phone. “We are the ‘People of the Book,’ and it’s my belief that the people of the book should have an excellent book.”
Nextbook has a new podcast of the long anticipated bar mitzvah of Jesse Green’s son Erez (the whole series leading up to the bar mitzvah is produced by Emily Botei). Through a private conversation between Erez and the rabbi, Jesse learns that the bar mitzvah is not all about him. He also finds a comfortable answer to the question of what a bar mitzvah could mean to the child of gay atheist parents.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s podcast features a conversation in conjunction with its show “Thomas Chimes: Adventures in Pataphysics” titled “Alfred Jarry/Ubu and the Truth Commission: William Kentridge in Conversation with Michael Taylor,” which was held on April 12.
Kentridge, elsewhere described as “A native of Johannesburg [who] was born into a politically aware, actively anti-apartheid white Jewish family,” talks about Jarry’s Ma and Pa Ubu, about truth vs. justice (and its political relevance to South Africa) and about playing a dancing bear in his school play.
The PMA recently won $150,000 for “William Kentridge: Ten Tapestries” (due up in December), which “will reflect Kentridge’s continuing interest in the politics and social culture of South Africa” according to the Inquirer. According to the PEW Charitable Trusts site, the
Ten large-scale tapestries will be exhibited as a recent development in Kentridges’s work that continue his investigations of the socio-political context of South Africa and his interest in both drawing and the interconnections of multiple mediums through the inclusion of related works. Kentridge is one of the most important contemporary artists and his work has not been seen in depth before in our region.
Kentridge’s work will also be on exhibit in the Städel Museum’s “William Kentridge: What will Come (Has Already Come)” (June 2 – August 5), mentioned in this Artdaily.org article.
And
I’ve requested an interview. More here to follow if the artist replies. Interestingly, the artist doesn’t seem to have a web site or any web presence beyond the two You Tube videos…
Jennifer Judelsohn founded Neshama Soulworks Studio to help people make soul-connections, “the elevated level of consciousness that God breathes into us,” through “creative and expressive arts for personal growth and healing.” I wrote about her interfaith education program at the Washington Jewish Week. I spoke with her about her show at the Peace and a Cup of Joe cafe (about which she maintains a blog) in Baltimore.
MW: In what way, if any, do you view the work as Jewish per se?
JJ: Some of the pieces have explicitly Jewish content, such as the aleph-bet images. There’s also an image of “Shekhina in the Garden,” among others. The latter is a kabbalistic meditation on the Etz Chaim. “Narow Bridge” is a meditation on gesher tsar me-od, “All the world is a narrow bridge.”
There also are pieces that have no Jewish content at all. In most cases, though, they have some relation to universal spiritual concepts, which I come to from a Jewish perspective.
MW: What is the most important religious message that your work in the show conveys?
JJ: I think there’s a difference between religion and spirituality. For me, the work is spiritual in nature, not religious per se.
One of the themes that runs through all the pieces is the light within. I think of it as the Divine spark that exists in all of us and all things.
Mandalas act as mirrors. They take the viewer into their own center and connect them to their most authentic self. In that sense, they invite the viewers to connect with the Divine within them–with their true self.
These also are images of hope–that even in the darkest times, there is hope. And we should focus on drawing that out. That’s what I try to do in all my artwork, and that’s what I hope viewers will take away from the show.
The show represents my own artistic, psychological, and spiritual journey over the past almost fifteen years. But there’s also a universal aspect–that we are all on our own journeys, that life is a circle, that in a variety of ways we are all one (echad).
Are there any good modern artists who tackle biblical themes extinct? Think Christian wonders, citing Christianity Today’s slideshow and Images on Christ Project. A comment mentions Makoto Fujimura, founder of IAM.
[Think Christian]
“We have made our worldview the point of our art, instead of making art as such. Or, if you like, we have set our worldview above our art, instead of inside it,” writes Aaron Telian, “Too often our art - like our evangelism - is full of ’strings.’”
[Sojourner’s Song]
Ahmed Moustafa, “one of the most influential artists that contributed Arabic calligraphy of the Quran into beautiful Masterpieces,” with pictures.
[Fann 3 Arabi]
“This affirms my great belief in the American judicial process; I am very grateful,” says Elizabeth Taylor, who gets to keep a van Gogh painting (pictured) looted by the Nazis, because the Orkin family sued too late for the works. “It’s wonderful to have Monsieur Vincent van Gogh in my living room.” The painting passed through two Jewish dealers before arriving at Taylor’s living room.
[IOL]
My Self-Hating Jews article has received some attention:
Tikun Olam (Richard Silverstein)
Update: MuzzleWatch
The DC Goethe Institut, a great venue which I try to visit as often as I can, has two upcoming events that sound interesting:
1. A screening of “Lost Children,” a film about the northern Uganda Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), whose members “abduct children and conscript them as soldiers, forcing them to kill their own people. This film documents the lives of four children who successfully escaped the LRA. But reintegration into their families is not always successful…” Monday, May 21, 6:30 pm, info@washington.goethe.org
2. A joint exhibit with the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue on “Roman Vishniac’s Berlin” through June 27.
The “Noor Project” (from the Arabic for “light”) “seeks to uncover and animate the mathematical algorithms underlying the characteristic ornamentation of Middle Eastern mosques.”
[The Daily Californian]
“Islam never created an Islamic art, but rather took into its service pre-Islamic art … The pre-Islamic state, namely the Oriental state in its Byzantine form, made Islam into its state religion; the pre-Islamic spirit of the Koran adopted either pre-Islamic rationalism or mysticism and orthodoxy. In Europe, by contrast, in Christian Europe, there arose something new: Christian art, and a Christian state.”
[Franz Rosenzweig, quoted in a post by Horace Jeffery Hodges]
The winners of the 2007 Holocaust Art & Writing Contest have been announced. Approximately 700 Student entered the contest.
[St. Louis UJC]
“Personal Jesus…: The Religious Art of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol” is scheduled to open on June 1 at The Andy Warhol Museum. More on this to follow.
ESPN’s Bill Simmons has a great new podcast, Eye of the Sports Guy. In the current issue, he talks to Adam Carolla about Jews in boxing. Carolla suggests that Jews have disappeared from boxing, since they are no longer hungry immigrants, but instead well educated. For more on the topic of Jews in boxing, see the National Museum of Jewish American History’s (Philadelphia) online exhibit “Sting Like a Maccabee” and Nextbook’s biography of boxer Barney Ross.
Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great (who has yet to respond to Iconia’s request for an interview on religious art), gives the above devastating “obituary” for Jerry Falwell (HT: Michael Dubitzky).
I am still searching for information on Falwell’s views on religious art (suggestions are welcome), but he did come down hard on Teletubbies, which he called gay. See the article in Image.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s family has blocked Watertown’s New Repertory Theatre’s projected performance of “To Pay the Price,” about the former PM’s older brother, Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu, who was killed while serving in the IDF. Of course, the family denies parallels to “My Name is Rachel Corrie.”
[Boston Globe]
Andrew Sullivan posts on the return of the Islamist Mickey.
[Daily Dish]
Jewish photographer Leonard Nimoy likes his nudes Rubenesque, and it somehow makes sense that the creator of the Shekhina project placed his new images next to Margaret Miles Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West in this great interview.
[IHT]
“It takes people” to turn a building into a Hindu temple.
[Religion News Blog]
Rothko is worth $72.84 million, at least in the Sotheby’s configuration. (I’ve covered his Jewishness here, here and at World & I, requires login.)
[IHT]
Ever since I was nominated for the JIB Awards, I’ve been thinking about whether this blog is an appropriate candidate for a Jewish/Israeli award. I’ve seen other blogs that link to Iconia listing it as non-Christian, or non-Muslim, and indeed I can’t justly call the blog Christian or Muslim. I view it as all of the above and more. I want this space to be a comfortable space for people of all faiths and religions, and equally so for atheists and anyone thinking maturely about questions of faith. To the extent that this conversation gets provocative (as in the animated film I posted just before this), it is only because provocative issues are important to discuss–not because I intend to offend or alienate anyone. So I guess it is important to be nominated for a Jewish blog award, because it expands the notion of what a Jewish blog might entail. But please don’t confuse the nomination with any slant in the coverage here. I don’t judge, I only inspect and dig.
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