Archive for the 'Hinduism' Category

Roundup: Hassid Quits Natalie Portman, Christie’s Backs Husain

March 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • [JTA] A Hassidic actor was pressured by his community to quit a movie role as Jerusalem-born actress Natalie Portman’s husband.
  • [NDTV] Christie’s is sticking with its artist, M F Husain, accused of depicting Hindu deities in a ‘’derogatory and vulgar'’ way.
  • [Denver Post] Rembrandt takes over a Mormon church gym, and helps folks “know we truly love the savior, Jesus Christ,” says the church spokesman. Image below: DP.

  • [JTA] As attempts were made to boycott Israeli writers at the Paris Book Fair, a bomb scare hit.

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    Roundup: Ugly Jews, Attractive Sentimentality

    March 13th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • (Image: Student German Vazquez, who’s inspired by Middle Eastern art and Buddhism. The Advocate)
  • [Wash. Post] A 1-woman show for Frida, Jewish-born father (?) turned atheist, “With Herself as Artist and Subject.”
  • [Forward] Vitebsk’s Jewish artists flourished thanks to Yuri Moiseevich Pen, “the Adam of his artsy race.”
  • [Haaretz] In Middle Ages Christian art, Jews are ugly, but somehow rabbis spun it so that “The source of the ugliness was their sexual purity,” while Christians’ beauty “derived from an impure source.”
  • [Patry Copyright Blog] William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google, writes on copyrights and Anschluss, particularly how they interact with “Degenerate Art.”
  • [Aristasia] In defense of the “attractiveness” of “sentimental” Christian and Hindu art.
  • [Boston Globe] On the biblical source for Judaic needlework and The Pomegranate Guild.
  • [Abigail’s Alcove] A Catholic art critic skips the Greek revival and baroque sections (”Those are just myths”) and falls in love with Rubens “through the eyes of Faith.”
  • [16 and Q Blog] A recap of Ori Soltes’ lecture on “Jewish Abstract Expressionists After the Holocaust.”

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    Roundup: A Controversial Exhibit in Vienna, A Museum Without Jews

    March 4th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • Katayun Saklat has a dream: “It would be an art museum which would house pieces on the theme of seven major religions of the world, including Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism, necessarily in that order,” reports the Telegraph, India. I wonder if she misplaced the “not of ‘not necessarily’” in the same place she forgot about Judaism and Jewish art.
  • ArtIslam, a London-based venue of abstract Islamic art, has won a Muslim News Award for Excellence. (Image from ArtIslam)

  • Founded by Prince Charles, the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts teaches traditional Islamic art, reports The Daily Star, Lebanon.
  • The Leopold Museum’s (Vienna) exhibit of Albin Egger-Lienz includes “over a dozen works of dubious origin,” according to some. The European Jewish Press reports (via AFP) one of the works was given to Hitler on his birthday in 1939. Other versions: CBC, China Post
  • One morning, Will Towns woke up with a revelation: “to create letters out of quarter-inch ceramic floor tiles and use them to spell out Bible verses on a plank of wood.” Since then, he’s created about 60 such pieces, reports the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
  • Writing on “Dumb Art Gallery Owners Make Dumb Decision to Close Dumb Exhibition” on Blogger News Network, Clarsonimus elaborates on a BBC story and wonders why Danish artists are again at the center of religious controversy.

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    Roundup: Buddha in NY, Exhibitting Stolen Art

    February 19th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • [Arutz Sheva] As several museums have recently lost art to thieves, the Israel Museum is showing art stolen during the Holocaust, including one fascinating Chagall (photo included in the article) I’ve never seen before.

  • Photo: NY Times, from “Inspired by Buddha, Admired as Art.” Money quote: “‘People’s faces looked very calm and peaceful while viewing the sculptures in Tokyo,’ said Hiroko Sakomura, 59, the show’s executive producer. ‘It will be interesting to see what happens in New York, the most powerful, intense metropolis with an emphasis on art.’”
  • [Bangkok Post] The Preah Vihear temple (for worshiping Shiva), which sits on a cliff, needs restoring, but “conservation work has rarely been done at the site, partly because of adjacent minefields left by the wars in Cambodia.” The director of the Thai Archeology Office says “‘In the field of arts and culture, we all know that the work has no frontier because the site belongs to humanity.” (Added bonus, learn the word ‘anastylosis.’

  • Image: ABC, of Saint John’s Bible, the first bible in nearly 500 years to be created completely by hand. See here for more information.
  • [Belfast Telegraph] A humorous account by Mark Hughes of Smart Arts: A guide to bluffing contemporary art.

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    Afghani Remnants, 2 Kitaj Shows, Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East

    January 9th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • In twins Brennon and Alonzo Edwards’ tag team, pictured, Alonzo makes religious art, which Brennon sells. Alonzo says of his piece on Amnon’s rape of Tamar, “I started praying on it, and I got a vision of how to paint it.” [The Flint Journal]
  • Andrea Useem, creator and publisher of ReligionWriter, writes on “What Makes a Movie ‘Christian?’” with an interview of Phil Vischer. Veggie haters beware. [ReligionWriter.com]

  • The Met is looking for a new director to replace Philippe de Montebello. One candidate is MOMA director Glenn Lowry, whose specialty is Islamic art. [NY Times]
  • Mel Alexenberg posts a blog on his “Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East.” I’ve written about Mel here and interviewed him here. [Aesthetic Peace]
  • Leah Ollman writes on “two landmark exhibitions” of Kitaj’s works “focusing on Kitaj’s prolific obsession with things Jewish.” [LA Times]
  • The traveling show “Hidden Afghanistan” at Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) offers tells the “engrossing tale” of remnants of Afghanistan’s art were saved from the Taliban. [TIME magazine]

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    Bangladeshi Shivas Stolen, Questioning Eldridge Street’s Restoration, What Should We Call Jesus?

    January 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker

  • Bangladesh’s cultural affairs adviser has quit, eight people are arrested an an exhibit canceled, after two 1,500-year-old statues of Vishnu were stolen from Dhaka’s international airport. The pieces, insured for $65k, were headed to Paris. If one adapts a post from mooligai sidhan, the King of Thieves has been stolen. [ARTINFO]
  • Despite completing its 20-year restoration, which shows it’s “flexible and adaptable enough to reinvent itself as a historic space given over to the presentation of the “immigrant experience,’” Jenna Weissman Joselit laments, “it’s clear to anyone with an eye to the present that the days when the [Eldridge Street Synagogue]’s pews would be routinely filled with worshippers are long gone.” [Forward]
  • Fleming Rutledge wonders “What should we call Jesus?” with attention to Larry Hurtado’s “massive study” Lord Jesus Christ, 2003. Needless to say, the applications of this discussion to art history and criticism are very important. [Generous Orthodoxy]
  • Louise Nevelson’s work at the Jewish Museum ranks number three on Robert Ayers’ list of top five 2007 shows. [ARTINFO]

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    RIP Borat, Nativity Plus Animals, Hindu Abstraction

    December 21st, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • In an interview with John Hiscock, Sacha Baron Cohen, pictured (Time), said killing off Borat “is like saying goodbye to a loved one.” [The Telegraph, UK]
  • Talk about mixing church and state: Sam Fink, 92, has illustrated “The Book of Exodus” and “The Gettysburg Address.” [Jewish Journal]
  • Barnyard animals + the Nativity story = added “context to the birth of Jesus while connecting children to a story they can understand, area religious leaders and professors say.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch]
  • Did artists invent the Three Wise Men? The ox and ass? Not quite, says Christopher Howse. [The Telegraph, UK]
  • Is Hindu art (at least in Bali) veering toward abstraction? I Wayan Karja writes, “This abstraction is based on narrative and icons, including symbolic and non-symbolic elements, with the use of color as a major component.” [The Jakarta Post]
  • “Christian and secular art have at least one thing in common - they like to have people in them,” writes Shelina Zahra Janmohamed in “Whose body is it anyway?” Yet, “Islamic aesthetic principles find the body an alien impostor to spiritual aspiration.” [The Muslim News, UK]

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    Musharraf “Shocked” by Gulgee’s Death, Bon Art

    December 20th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • President Pervez Musharraf is “shocked” by the death of Pakistani artist Gulgee, particularly for his impact on Islamic art. [Pakistan Times]
  • Christmas is the time for looking at the Old Masters. Jonathan Jones posts his five favorite images for greeting cards. [The Guardian]
  • “All too often we hear it said, very wrongly and inaccurately, that classical music is a ‘western Christian art,’” but “opera and ballet can be enjoyed as a human right of civilized countries … which reaches way past boundaries of religion and nationality.” [The New Anatolian]
  • “A Mondrian abstraction, an ancient Greek sculpture of a youth, or a Corot landscape can be as spiritually uplifting as a Buddha or a crucifix,” argues Lance Esplund. “In art, it is not what the subject brings to the artwork, but rather what the artist brings to his subject.” Read on for a crash course in Bon art. [NY Sun]
  • The Royal Ontario Museum is opening a South Asian Gallery, whose first exhibit will be “Playful Krishna,” which will highlight “the colourful life of Krishna, Hinduism’s most powerful divinity.” [Earth Times]
  • On Tanner’s Annunciation: “Let’s play the imagination game. In your mind, what would a first-century Jewish young woman of modest means look like? Think historically. Now look at the painting. What do you see? Is Tanner’s painting similar to what you imagined the scene should look like, if painted accurately?” [Baptist Press]
  • The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Sparks is one silver replica of “The Last Supper” poorer, after thieves lifted it. [KOLO TV]
  • Joshua Cohen on Kitaj’s “Second Diasporist Manifesto: A New Kind of Long Poem in 615 Free Verses.” [Forward]

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    A Buddhist Fashion Show

    December 15th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • Forward arts roundup: Eli Rosenblatt on a virtual shul, Thomas Doherty on Hollywood’s antisemitic censor Joseph I. Breen, and Daniel Treiman on a Jewish Elvis who stalks Michael Moore.


    • (Right) “Japanese monks and nuns held a fashion show - with rap music and a catwalk - at a major Tokyo temple Saturday to promote Buddhism.” The “Tokyo Bouz (monk) Collection” of about 40 monks and nuns from eight major Buddhist sects “aimed at winning back believers.” CNN, photo: AP.

  • Arab American News arts roundup: Ali Moossavi reviews “Lions For Lambs,” the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) Theatre Company produces Yussef El Guindi’s “Back of the Throat,” and Lebanese-filmmaker Rola Nashef’s “Detroit Unleaded.”
  • Geographical zones affect the various art forms of Nepal, “the artists and painters living in the Himalayan region get inspiration from Mahayana Buddhism. However, the painters and artist from plain areas get inspiration from Hinduism.” [Media For Freedom]
  • UCLA Buddhist studies has 10 more years of support for the Yehan Numata Endowment totaling $750k. According to the UCLA site, “UCLA has a distinguished Buddhist studies program, boasting the largest faculty outside of Asia and the greatest number of graduate students studying Buddhism or Buddhist art history anywhere in the United States or Europe.”

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    Wilmette, Chicago’s Baha’i Temple

    December 13th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Here are some pictures I took at the Baha’i Temple in Chicago a few weeks ago. I was particularly interested in how the Baha’i principle of “the oneness of humankind” (based upon teachings of Baha’u'llah) play out in Baha’i art. Note in the column below how the Jewish star, the cross, the Hindu swastika, and the Muslim crescent all coexist.

    The temple (the only one in North America) has nine sides attached to the dome. It was designed by Baha’i architect Jean-Baptiste Louis Bourgeois (1856-1930), not to be confused with Louise Bourgeois.

    I wonder how, if at all, the Baha’i faith conceives of idolatry. One might think Judaism and Islam wouldn’t consider the Baha’i idolatrous, since the Baha’i view God as unknowable. Idolatry necessitates a God with a visible, physical form.

    Yet, the Baha’i, who find aspects of truth in all religions and recognize a diverse bunch of prophets — including Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad — must then find truth even in polytheistic religions. Can one remain a monotheist and still find truth in polytheism? It sounds theoretically plausible, but one wonders how that could play out practically.

    These are of course simplistic questions that require further study. If this is an area in which you are knowledgeable, please leave comments and/or recommendations of informative texts.

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    Cincinnati Art Museum Cancels Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic Exhibit

    December 10th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • Here are several Holocaust-related stories from JTA. Even as the Muslim Council of Britain no longer boycotts Holocaust Memorial Day (release here), 67-year-old Gerd Honsik is going to jail for denial. Kieran Shinkins, a 10th-grade teacher in Ukraine, asked students to create Nazi election posters, the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission asked the Australian government to ban Thompson, a rock group it calls neo-Nazi, and Germany is dropping a suit against Wikimedia Deutschland for posting too many swastikas.
  • The Cincinnati Art Museum has canceled the Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic art exhibit, The Arts of Kashmir, upon learning not all the pieces would arrive for the show from the Asia Society. Curators felt “it wouldn’t have as much impact without all the original objects.” [Cincinnati Enquirer]
  • Israeli archaeologists say they’ve discovered Queen Helene of Adiabene’s 2,000-year-old home. [JTA]
  • Sivia Katz Braunstein’s dreidels will appear at the White House Hannukah party. [The Courier Post]

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    Buganda Traditionalists Demand Their God from Uganda Museum, Toronto Gets a New Jewish Theater, Romulus and Remus Cave Discovered?

    November 21st, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • Does religious art really belong in museums, asked more than 100 Buganda traditionalists, who stormed the Uganda Museum and demanding icons and body parts of their war god Kibuuka. “We want a decent, ceremonial burial for our god,” they said. “We are not here to stare at his remains and go away.” [allAfrica.com]
  • Hindu “extremists” are trying to force Hindu culture on Indian Christians, particularly the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,. which “alleges that the Hindu religious tradition is inseparable from the Indian culture, thereby equating being Indian with complete conformity to the Hindu way of life.” [Christian Today]

  • (Above) A newly discovered cave that might be the one where a wolf suckled Romulus and Remus. According to the Guardian, “What the grotto beneath the Palatine is not, obviously, is “proof” that the mythic Romulus existed, let alone evidence of an actual she-wolf. Rome’s founding myth is just that, a myth. But it’s one of Europe’s central myths, and this may well be the shrine that commemorates it.”
  • The Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company in Toronto is so new that it doesn’t yet have a website, though it does have a $1m budget. [The Globe and Mail]
  • Chris Weitz, director of “The Golden Compass,” has promised more anti-religious themes in his sequel, which includes a deicide. [Christian Post]

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    A Hindu and Christian Carved Tree, Houston Museum Raises $3.6m for Islamic Art

    November 4th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has raised $3.6m of the required $35m to establish “the first collection of Islamic art in Texas and the South.” Evidently, the International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Miss., doesn’t count as the South or as a collection of Islamic art. [Houston Chronicle, AP]
  • When a tree crashed on Barbara Dyche’s deck, she invited an artist to work on it rather than paying $1,500 for its removal. The result? Paul Sivell visiting Dyche’s Chicago home from England and the sculpture “Doxology,” four 20-25 foot branches which “become four worshipers with arms stretched to the sky, praising God,” based upon a worshiper’s raised hand at Harvest Bible Chapel and carvings at the BAPS Hindu Temple. [Daily Herald, IL]
  • (Right) “Doxology,” Honey Locust, Private Commission, Geneva, Illinois. thecarvedtree.com.
  • An email box as confessional. Frank Warren posts the secrets he receives on postsecrets.com. [Chicago Tribune]
  • With the caveat that “One can read too much into auction results,” Kaelen Wilson-Goldie argues, “it seems significant that art exploring the spiritual dimensions of Islam sold strongly” in Christie’s $31.7m sale in Dubai. Apparently, sex did not sell. [The Daily Star, Lebanon]
  • Bernard Lewis, speaking in Washington courtesy of the Ethics and Public Policy Center: “We don’t talk about Christian astronomy, or Christian mathematics. If we say ‘Christian art,’ this would be understood to refer to votive art - art in places of worship and connected with worship. If we say ‘Islamic art,’ it means the entire artistic production of the Islamic art, including a great deal that we would call secular, a word for which until very recently there was no equivalent in Arabic or Persian or Turkish.” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
  • Mohamed Zakariya (see my interview here) visits the Houston Museum of Fine Art. David J. Roxburgh, professor of Islamic art at Harvard, said: “There are certain aspects of the way of writing calligraphy that people just don’t get to see when it is completed. The pen is retired to the inkwell several times, and the calligrapher might take several strokes to complete one letter.'’ [Houston Chronicle]

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    Arts Roundup: Heirs Claim 227 Nazi-Looted Paintings and a 105k Book of Mormon

    September 22nd, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • [digital journal] 227: The number of paintings heirs of late Jewish dealer Nathan Katz have claimed from Dutch museums.
  • [Style Weekly] The title speaks for itself: “Sexy Elephants with Secret Compartments” (and Ganesha).
  • [Associated Press of Pakistan] Ninety works by 40 calligraphers are scheduled to appear at Al-Khattat Islamic art gallery to correspond with Ramazan.
  • [Journeys in Between] Matt Stone writes on the National Christian Art Competition of America: “Oh, and if you’re an artist yourself, it seems the 2006-2007 competition is still open.”
  • [al.com] Rob Bell: “I don’t believe in Christian art or music. The word ‘Christian’ was originally a noun. A person, not an adjective. I believe in great art. If you are an artist, your job is to do great art and you don’t need to tack on the word ‘Christian.’ It’s already great. God is the God of Creativity. Categories desecrate the form. It’s either great art or it isn’t.”
  • [Religion News Blog] The Book of Mormon sells for $105,000.

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    Arts Roundup: A Sexual Jesus and Bubbe the Muse

    September 20th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • [The Open Press] Janet McKenzie, whose “Christ Mother” depicts Jesus as a woman, says “Sometimes ‘controversial’ art simply comes forward, like it or not. It is like a scream; you are doing it before you realize you are.” See also here.
  • [News @ Princeton] “Dunhuang Manuscripts and Paintings: An International Symposium Honoring James and Lucy Lo” will transpire at Princeton next Friday.
  • [NY Magazine] Jerry Saltz writes on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Money quotes (HT: Conde Nast Portfolio.com):

    Numerous government sites warn that Israeli passport holders and travelers whose passports bear Israeli stamps will be denied entry visas to the Emirates. Thus, the Guggenheim — founded by a Jewish family, an institution with Jewish curators and scores of works by Jewish artists, designed by the Jewish Gehry — isn’t really welcome either … As of July 2006, it was reported that no nudes were to be shown, nor anything deemed “controversial.”

  • [NY Jewish Week] Painter Jonathan Santlofer turned to writing after a fire destroyed his work and “for some reason I’d lost my direction in painting.” He says he owes it all to his bubbe.
  • [Queerty] Matthias Von Fistenberg, director of Passio, which is sure to make “Fox News anchors explode,” says “My Jesus is gay, stunningly beautiful and sexy. He gets aroused like all of us … The movie is a gospel, passio, version of the Jesus story according to me.”

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    Arts Roundup: “For the Love of God” Sold and Burning Man’s Second Coming

    September 4th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • [KMS News] About 130 objects of Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu art are to go on exhibit at the Asia Society, focusing on the Kashmir valley, “a vibrant hub of intellectual activity for its Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu populations.”
  • [AME Info] Abu Dhabi hosts “Walk into Islamic History,” an exhibit which draws from the collection of Abdul Latif Kanoo.
  • [WIRED] Burning Man experiences a Second Coming, which makes sense in light of this.
  • [Art News Blog] For the Love of God: Hirst’s diamond skull sold. I’m sure ANB is correct to be very suspicious.

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    Arts Roundup: Romney Won’t See Mormon Film and Malaysia Paper Temporarily Banned for Jesus Image with Cigarettes and Beer

    August 27th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • [Christian Today] A Malaysia newspaper has been banned from publishing for a month by the Muslim government for publishing a Jesus cartoon with a cigarette and beer. The Danish cartoon comparison is inevitable
  • [Detroit News] The Khalil Gibran International Academy, NYC’s first school to teach Arabic and Arab culture, encounters more hurdles.
  • [Journal of Islamic Studies] JIS reviews a reprint of Nubian Ceremonial Life: Studies in Islamic Syncretism and Cultural Change with a new introduction. “It is essential reading for ethnographers, students of religion and religious syncretism in Africa, and anthropologists,” writes Hussein Ahmed of Addis Ababa University. See also JIS on The Experience of Islamic Art on the Margins of Islam
  • [Religion News Blog] “Marble, limestone and sandstone and over 34,000 stone slabs, including over 2,000 hand-carved figurines”–meet Atlanta’s new Hindu temple, which one worker says “brings true Indian architecture and culture to life on American soil.”
  • [Washington Post] Romney turns down the opening of a film on Mormon history.
  • [NPR] “Jihad” the musical runs for 10 more days in London, and the cast hopes it will run in New York as well.

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    Arts Roundup: Caravaggio’s Evil and 7,000 Jewish Postcards

    August 9th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

  • [The Rest is Noise] Alex Ross is unconvinced by the story that broke yesterday about Hitler’s taste for music. After all, what’s a handful of Russian records compared to his nearly 400 Wagner records? (See also this NY Times story on musicians during the Nazi era, requires login.)
  • [NY Times] James Wood is headed to The New Yorker. For a religion angle, I can cite this.
  • [Dallas Morning News] Meet Stephanie Comfort, Jewish postcard collector par excellence, to the order of 7,000 cards. See another instance of Jewish postcards.
  • [Jewish Press] Richard McBee writes on Caravaggio And Evil. Money quote: “The enormous empathy one feels for both David and Goliath allows us to see Caravaggio pondering his own image, mourning how the evil that seems so deeply ingrained must be eradicated.”
  • [BU Arion] Camille Paglia writes on Religion and the Arts in America: “I would argue that the route to a renaissance of the American fine arts lies through religion.” Pagila’s article is brilliant, and I need more time to absorb it. HT: Quill and Nail, Evangelical Outpost, Marginal Revolution.

    • (Image) David with the Head of Goliath (1606), Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese, Rome. JPress.

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    Arts Roundup: 600 Honduran Sacred Pieces to be Returned and Elton John vs. Internet

    August 6th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Honduras is returning more than 600 pieces of sacred art of “incalculable historical value” stolen from churches over the past 13 years, reports CNA. HT: James, The World… God.

    “What can be more demoniacal than to suggest a connection between the Hindu swastika and Adolf Hitler?” demands Gaurinath Shastri in a letter to Stabroek News in protest of a writer’s “campaign” to “denigrate Hinduism as much as is possible.” See Iconia’s interview with Sanjay Mistry, a spokesman for the Hindu Forum of Britain, here.

    Alan Noble posts on Bezalel on works of art that confirm beliefs rather than challenge them.

    If art must move someone to change, would a work of art reveling in the majesty of God’s creation be entertainment? If the viewer already understood that the world was beautiful and a painting would only reinforce that belief, would it be entertainment?

    In other news, Symeon writes an interesting response to Evangelicals Start Push in the Arts, Saul Adler of Herzlia Middle School is looking for Jewish posters to decorate his classroom, Deborah Solomon interviews chronicler of “the vanishing world of working-class Irish Catholics” Mary Gordon, Sir Elton John wants the internet shut down, Rick Garnett posts on Flannery O’Connor and Christian art and Jennifer Tiszai posts on a lecture from Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, on A Christian World View of Culture and the Arts.

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    Arts Roundup: Sacred Silks Sell, Tazhib Works Do Not

    July 31st, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Religion News Service writes on Angela Coppola, 64, president and creative director of the Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif.-based Sacred Silks International. SSI now features 20 patterns, from

    the mandala-like Sri Yantra to Judaism’s “fire and water” windows from a San Francisco synagogue to Sir William Richmond’s mosaics in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The latest design, called the “Peace Silk,” incorporates “the golden rule” as expressed in the scriptures of many faiths, from Islam to Shinto to Yoruba.

    (Above) “Moses Praying While Joshua Fights the Amelekites,” engraving, 1627/30, by Jan Lievens. Art of the Bible.

    “If the masters cannot make a living out of their work it will fade away. They have to be protected like an endangered species. This is our heritage, our identity,” tazhib artist Mehdi Moghiseh told the Daily Star’s Hiedeh Farmani, who observed in the subheading, “Artists spend months perfecting a piece, but are unable to sell their work in a climate prizing modern art.”

    Continue reading ‘Arts Roundup: Sacred Silks Sell, Tazhib Works Do Not’

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    Gandhi Outsourced

    July 27th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Source: SAJAforum.

    “Might be the first one to get Mahatma Gandhi into an outsourcing cartoon,” writes Sree on the South Asian Journalists Association blog of the July 26 Mother Goose & Grimm strip.

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    Interview: Amanda Mae

    July 8th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    It all started with Amanda Mae’s post on Pamela’s Prayer, which I blogged about here. It turns out Amanda is real, and she instant messaged me a few days later. We talked about a number of things, including idolatry, what it means that Jesus assumed human form and good and bad religious art. Here are some selections from the discussion, posted IM style, sans screen names:

    MW: I think a lot of people make a similar point about focusing on good vs. bad art, rather than Christian vs. Other art.
    AM: yeah.
    MW: And I agree of course that art should be effective as art first.
    MW: But I also think Christian art is widely ignored and undervalued.
    MW: So I think it should be celebrated when it works.
    AM: And Christians are so desperate to have any slice of the pie that they’ll hail bad art (the Left Behind movies) as good art
    MW: Well I am not sure about that.
    MW: In my experience people embrace art that speaks to them.
    MW: I think perhaps some Christians are looking for things that don’t appeal to you, and they find it in art that doesn’t appeal to you.
    AM: I grew up in the Christian culture, and from my experience, I can say that most Christians really liked “Christian” things, even when they were really poorly done or celebrated bad art
    MW: Perhaps they see it as Christian ideas arranged art-wise rather than art that truly grapples with Christianity.
    AM: Often the appreciation of art was completely secondary to the message.
    MW: So you mean they’d go for kitsch over art?
    MW: Honestly I don’t think it’s just Christians. Many Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists, etc. look for their theology in art form, but emphasize the religion over the art.
    AM: They love stuff that has Christian messages, but some of the strongest Christian art with the most powerful messages is not stamped with a Bible verse.
    MW: It’s almost like art public affairs for religion.

    Continue reading ‘Interview: Amanda Mae’

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    Arts Roundup: A Tolerant Frank Lloyd Wright and Too Many Influences Does Not Religious Art Make

    July 7th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    I am skeptical when I hear an artist draws inspiration from “religious art of all origins,” as Pierre et Gilles proclaim. Indeed their interest in “pop, mythological, enchanting, burlesque, religious and erotic” symbols is diverse, but pedestrian, as their piece on Artdaily shows.

    Artists understandably are intolerant of clients who change their works without their permission, but Frank Lloyd Wright, according to ARTVOICE, “calmed when told that what those priests had done was for a spiritual purpose, and indeed that their tenancy at Graycliff had prevented the place from falling entirely to ruin or even to demolition.”

    (Above) “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” (1601-02) by Caravaggio. Photo: Leadership U, and linked by Sister Saint Aloysius, who writes in honor of Saint Thomas’ feast day, “Most of us think of St Thomas as the Apostle who doubted everything and as you can see he is usually depicted in religious art poking his finger in Christ’s wounds. Jesus was very patient. But, I wonder how patient most of us are on these hot summer days, with the temperatures soaring, strange bugs biting us and rashes festering in places too private to mention.”

    Continue reading ‘Arts Roundup: A Tolerant Frank Lloyd Wright and Too Many Influences Does Not Religious Art Make’

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    Arts Roundup: An LDS Gold Rush, a Sissy-fied St. Michael and What Good Jewish Boy Artists Do

    June 7th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Money Quote from a review of sculptor Julian Isaacson: “A good Jewish boy artist doesn’t really do Christian art; and a Christian artist doesn’t really ever use the Star of David.”
    [Mail Tribune (Southern Oregon)]

    In this week’s Mormon Cast podcast (episode 42), Matt Worley interviews Daryn Tufts, an LDS filmmaker/actor and creator of American Mormon and Stalking Santa. Tufts addresses the “gold rush” of Mormon artists following his lead, how said rushers are weeded out and his Nike-like advice for aspiring Mormon artist: Just do it.
    [Mormon Cast]

    Right: Newport artist Sandy Roumagoux’s “Genesis 2.” Roumagoux “worried what colleagues would say about her ‘religious art,’” though one of pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church in Newport, Dave Brauer-Rieke’s students said, “This work kicks ass.” HT: Newport News Times.

    Rather than “the more sissy-fied images” of St. Michael the Archangel, Matt1618 prefers one with a sword and chain trampling the devil.
    [The School of Mary]

    Continue reading ‘Arts Roundup: An LDS Gold Rush, a Sissy-fied St. Michael and What Good Jewish Boy Artists Do’

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    Arts Roundup: Endangered Religious Art and Spiritual Art Spaces

    June 6th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    A very interesting video clip on St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow. As Mark O’Neil explains, “taking objects into a museum usually reduces their meaning … we wanted to put them in a museum where it is not exactly a spiritual space but we wanted to make it possible for believers to have a spiritual experience here.” Needless to say, all is not well in the museum of all religions…

    “What does it mean to ‘think biblically’ about artistic expression?” wonders Colossians Three Sixteen, reflecting, “One of the first things that must be said is that art, and music in particular are worthy Christian pursuits.”

    Offertory: A Journal posts a painting called “Vigil,” an abstracted work that shows “bloody strands at the head of the blobby body [which] felt to me like Christ’s head wounds, and the whole image has this Holy Week or Good Friday feel to it, the cool darkness of an empty church right before the Easter Vigil Mass.”

    Continue reading ‘Arts Roundup: Endangered Religious Art and Spiritual Art Spaces’

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    Arts Roundup: Faddish Vastu and the Idolatry of Everything but Idols

    May 31st, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    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.

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    Arts Roundup: Khalil al-Zahawi Murdered in Baghdad and Having a Cow about Art

    May 28th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    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]

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    Arts Roundup: Orthodox Jewish Art Meets Muslim Bengalis in London’s East End

    May 23rd, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    “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]

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    Arts Roundup: Nemoy’s Nudes and Islamist Mickey Returns

    May 16th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    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]

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    Arts Roundup: Institute of the Arab World Robbed and Why do Christian Book Stores Use Baby Blue?

    May 15th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker

    Roughly 80 works of Islamic art have been stolen from the Institute of the Arab World. To put that in perspective, the institute holds about 850 works, so one in ten has been misplaced.
    [France 24]

    “Nudes are everywhere in our country”–thus Suhas Roy, defending MF Husain, 91, who stands to be exiled for his erotic art.
    [Times of India]

    Jesus and Power Tools: A handsome (and stylized) painting of Joseph teaching Jesus carpentry.
    [James B. Janknegts, HT: Kicking Over My Traces]

    A few of my favorites from a post on Christian book stores:

    Why do all “Christian” Book Stores smell different than “Secular” book stores?
    Why must all Christian book stores use baby blue as their primary color of choice?
    Why is there more “Christian ART” in the stores than books?
    Do people actually buy those 500 dollar pictures of Jesus holding the dude with a needle?

    [Ragmuffinsoul]

    For all Christian artists and artists who are Christians, Jason Joyner has one word: “Freedom.”
    [Spoiled for the Ordinary]

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