Archive for the 'Judaism' Category
The field is called Antisemitica, and apparently those who pursue it are liable to be suspended from their jobs without pay.
At least that’s been the case with Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch, who collects Nazi artifacts. The blog Mere Rhetoric argues that Garlasco’s collecting “obsession colors the rest of what he does.” The logic, according to MR, is something like: Garlasco collects Nazi objects –> he is anti-Semitic –> he is anti-Israel.
I have no insider information about Garlasco or about HRW, so I won’t comment on that part of the story, but I will say that I have seen Antisemitica exhibited widely at Jewish museums (like this this one) and for sale at Jewish auction houses. Accusing someone of wrongdoing for collecting anti-Semitic historical objects is as absurd, in my estimation, of calling Arthur Miller an anti-Semite for writing Focus or Sholem Aleichem for Tevye the Milkman.
If anything, artists like Miller and Sholem Aleichem (and many others) should be commended for their work that brings awareness to the issue of anti-Semitism, and collecting Nazi memorabilia, rather than being something to apologize for, ensures that Holocaust memory continues.
Image: Cane of an anti semitic theme depicting a grotesque man with a large nose and teeth and a carved yarmulka(kippa) on his head. Source: Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, U of M.
I had a great interview last Sunday with Shalom USA radio (Baltimore based) that I have been meaning to post about. It was certainly different to be on the interviewed rather than interviewer side of things! Unfortunately, Shalom USA does not seem to have any archives posted online, so I can’t link to the clip. I have sent an inquiry to the producer to ask if there is something I can link, but until then I will only be able to let folks who are interested listen to a low-quality recording of just my segment (email me if you are interested).
Shalom USA has been on the air for 10 years, and host Jay Bernstein and producer Larry Cohen were fantastic. Jay asked me about my recent articles in the Forward on curly-pillar motifs in synagogues and in The Jewish Press on Jael and Sisera. Jay, it turns out, has a very impressive grasp of Jewish art, and his questions were right on the mark.
One thing he asked me was whether his hunch was correct that there are not many other writers addressing the intersection of Jewish and Christian art for Jewish readers. I agreed of course, but noted that this is a larger problem of a lack of religion and art reporting and scholarship in general. Hopefully this is changing, and Iconia is my little attempt to further the discussion about faith and art.
If you had a chance to hear the interview, I’d love it if you dropped me a comment or an email about what you thought.
It’s been quite a week. My Mormon art piece has been picked up by Mormon Times.
My piece on Christian propaganda in ark curtains appears in the Forward
And my column on Jael and Sisera in art appears in The Jewish Press.
I am quoted in Kate Shellnutt’s article “This Muslim-American life: Allah and the Arts” for News21.
Here are the quotes:
While plenty of art galleries in the U.S. display ancient Islamic art — hand-woven tapestries and painted earthenware pottery dating back to the time of the prophet Muhammad in the 7th century — there’s somewhat of a void for more recent works by Muslim-Americans.
“I have noticed also that there seem to be many more venues for Jewish and Christian artists in this country to show their work than there are for Muslims,” said Menachem Wecker, a freelance writer on religious art. He covers the intersection between faith and art, mostly focusing on Jewish, Christian and Islamic works on his blog, Iconica.
“I think the gap between artist who believes and artist who does not believe is much larger than the gap between artists of different faiths,” said Menachem, a Jewish artist and graduate of Yeshiva University in Manhattan.
The full article is available here.
I was interviewed by Aaron Roller of the Mima’amakim journal on a variety of topics related to art and faith. The interview is posted here, and it addresses (at least in part) mostly Judaism, but also Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and LDS. (The photo, which Aaron selected without consulting me, is from my trip to South Africa a couple of years ago, but maybe it’s appropriate because the thing over my right shoulder looks like a cross.)
I am very grateful to Rick Holton (Twitter/site) for bringing Patricia Cohen’s NY Times article “Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad in New Book” to my attention.
Cohen starts with an understanding of why Yale UP decided not to reprint the notorious Danish cartoons in Jytte Klausen’s book “The Cartoons That Shook the World.” But the article approaches the topic with a simplistic approach to the issues. For example, claiming that Muslims throughout the world saw the cartoons as “blasphemous” without defining the nature of the blasphemy (or even what blasphemy means in the context of the Koran), is not very useful. Also, applauding Yale for diligently consulting “two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism” (who said [surprise!] that the cartoons should be excluded) without at least wondering aloud why someone like Oleg Grabar was not included, immediately places the story in the context of international affairs rather than art.
There is some great comic relief in the article when Reza Aslan (Twitter) reminds everyone that it’s “an academic book for an academic audience by an academic press … There is no chance of this book having a global audience, let alone causing a global outcry … It’s not just academic cowardice, it is just silly and unnecessary.”
As I’ve said many times before, I’m not sure what the “blasphemy” is here. Cohen is right to point out that
Although many Muslims believe the Koran prohibits images of the prophet, Muhammad has been depicted through the centuries in both Islamic and Western art without inciting disturbances.
But I’d be very interested to hear more insight into whether those realistic traditions of Muhammad representation are largely in the Persian miniature style, as opposed to other traditions in Islamic art. I also have yet to hear any imams or other Islamic legal scholars weigh in on what exactly a representation of the Prophet entails. Does idolatry exclusively mean a realistic depiction, or can a cartoon constitute representation? What of a Cubist Muhammad (as in the rough image below, with thanks to this post) or a Fauvist Aisha?
It would surprise me if many imams had thought this through. Of course, that is hardly an indictment of their legal imagination, as studying art history is hardly a prerequisite to becoming a scholar of imam. When I asked several rabbis at a major Israeli yeshiva whether Cubist human figures or Fauvist celestial bodies violated the second commandment, I got blank stares (sort of like this joke, second-to-last blockquote on the page).
It remains my hope that a conference might be convened of Islamic legal and religious scholars, in which presentations would be made on what exactly the Koran permits for artists and what it forbids. This would be a great opportunity also to examine differences between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic interpretations of the Second Commandment, and also to include Buddhist and Hindu leaders, some of whom have told me that they resent the fact that their art is considered idolatrous and primitive.
Until then, we will continue to see more and more nonsense like this story.
Yesterday, I attended the Frontline (young adult) service at McLean Bible Church’s Tysons campus. This was my first mega-church experience, and if you haven’t had one it’s something absolutely unique. I’m not great at estimating numbers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were 2,500 seats in the room, and almost all were full — so full that the room needed two JumboTrons to convince those seated in the rear of what was taking place on stage. There was a video hookup to a Silver Spring campus and online streaming video.
After about 35 minutes of rock concert (lead guitar, electric guitar, backup singer, drums, keyboard), the pastor, Todd Phillips, talked about his theme of remembrance, and then there was communion and then more songs. And then things got interesting.
I wish I’d taken a picture of it, but the book store had some rings with Hebrew on them, including a few that said “Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li” (”I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me,” from Song of Songs, 6:3).
And then there was the one that meant to say, “Anochi ha’derech, v’ha’emet v’ha’chaim” (”I am the way, and the truth, and the life”). Not only was the inscription in Rashi script rather than print (very bizarre), but the second third letter was completely wrong, substituting a “bet” for a “kaf.” The inscription then read, “Anovi” or “Anobi” instead of “Anochi.”
I saw an image of the ring on this blog, though it’s a bit hard to see. It can also be viewed in this post, from a Christian store, though the store includes an image of the ring with the quote about Jesus being the way, with the translation of the verse from Song of Songs. I’ve included a blown-up image of the ring below, so readers who know Hebrew can see the misshaped letter (on the far right).
Maybe I’m over-thinking the irony of having a mistranslation and a poor inscription on a ring that talks about Jesus being not only the way, but also the truth. Either way, if you are reading this blog and you are considering spending $63 (or even $39.99) on a ring with a Hebrew inscription, please, if you do not know Hebrew, consider sending me an image first, and I will let you know if the inscription actually corresponds to the meaning you think it does.
UPDATE: Another irony is that the senior pastor of the church is a board member of Jews for Jesus, who has a Th.M. degree in Hebrew and Old Testament. Maybe they dont’ teach Rashi script at Capital Bible Seminary?
And perhaps for a different day, I am very interested in why churches like McLean, which do not adorn their walls with any Christian paintings at all, so readily embrace Christian music during their services. If music can be used in the service of God, why can’t the fine arts as well?
My review of the Metropolitan Museum’s show “Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages” appears in The Jewish Press.
I wanted to bring a wonderful story from RNS to readers’ attention, particularly as it is a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. In the article, Tiffany Stanley wonders, “Did the Crusades get a bum rap?” focusing on a new book by Rodney Stark (personal site) titled “God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades.”
Stark makes some very valid points. For instance, the crusades did not fill royal coffers, as popular belief states, but instead “made paupers of princes.” Also, crusaders were truly in it for the faith and were not just thugs masquerading under the banner of religion (though one who did not share their faith would surely want to keep one’s distance).
But Stark handles Islam in a seemingly offensive manner. Muslims in the Holy Land had it coming, he says, and crusaders were the “first military response to Muslim terrorists and their looming, advancing Islamic empire” (Stanley’s words).
“It wasn’t like they were harmless, little people minding their own business and tending their sheep,” Stark says of Muslims, adding, “I suspect that Muslims will hate the book, and I’m sorry about that … That’s just the way the world is. I make no apologies or real accusations.”
I will hold off passing judgment before reading the book (and maybe Stark will be willing to interview on this topic), but I do not think that such inflammatory statements about Islam will endear people to a book that seems otherwise to have a very fresh and important thesis. In high school, to the extent that my teachers referred to the crusades at all it involved stigmatizing them and equating them with Nazis. But the more I learned about them in my graduate study in art history the more I realized that the truer portrait of the crusaders matches the one Stark describes.
Image: Unknown French Master. Crusaders. 12th century. Mural. Chapel of the Templars, Cressac. Source: WGA.
A “mischievous thesis” about a mythical link to Joseph Smith in Orson Scott Card’s writing. HT: @zoemurdock.
Whereas the trend has been to take paintings away from Rembrandt and give them to his students (or worse yet, forgers), a rare piece that was not originally given to the Dutch master is now his. It’s extra special, because the subject is a pastor (pictured, image: BBC) of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Disney + Mamet = a new film about Anne Frank.
I finally got the chance to check Mel Alexenberg’s Jerusalem-USA project. See the blog here. It’s well worth a look!
This one is news to me, though not altogether shocking. William Morris was inspired by Islamic art. I must say, though, that this sounds tenuous to me:
His famous advice to “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,” echoes the Muslim saying in the Koran that “God is beautiful and loves beauty”.
I bet we could find similar statements in scriptures from many faiths. I’d welcome debate on this though.
My review of the show “They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust” through October 1 at The Jewish Museum appears in The Jewish Press.
I read the July 27 article titled “Church Official and Wife Beaten, Robbed in Gaza” with interest. The entire story is worth reading (and is short, though quite disturbing), but I think the final paragraph is worth noting in full:
Christians in the Gaza live in a kind of no-zone between two worlds, often caught in the cross-fire between Palestinians and Israelis. Neither side openly interacts with the small number of Christians in the area.
From Yeshiva World News (my translations in square brackets for folks who don’t understand Hebrew):
Maran [Aramaic for “our master”/Wikipedia] Rav Ovadia Yosef Shlita [acronym for “may he live a long, good life”] in his motzei shabbos [Saturday night] drasha [lecture] came out against U.S. President Barak [sic] Hussein Obama and other world leaders who feel they can dictate policy in Eretz Yisrael [Israel].
The Rav [rabbi] stated “they tell us not to build here and not to build there….as if we are their slaves”. The Rav concluded that Moshiach [Messiah] will come and they will all be gone.
Rav Ovadia added that in the place of the Beis HaMikdosh [Temple] today there are Arabs and all these wicked people will be ousted when Moshiach arrives. He is waiting for us more than we await his arrival explained the Gadol HaDor [term for the greatest sage of the generation]. “Only learning Torah will expedite his arrival. Nothing else will help, not bagrut (matriculation) or safrut (literature)”.
Invoking Pres. Obama’s middle name was an intentional move, I’m sure, and the rest of the story doesn’t require much comment, though it’s probably worth noting that the title on YWN is “Rav Ovadia Shlita Slams President Obama & Other World Leaders.”
Here. Bonus: learn what the term ‘mazal’ means as in ‘mazal tov.’
My review of Theater J’s The Seagull on 16th Street, link.
I just saw that I am mentioned in a footnote in Blaine Brownell’s (University of Minnesota) article “Assembling Light: PET Wall Installation” in the Journal of Architectural Education.
The note (#5) cites my article “Scavenger Par Excellence, Wandering Jewess” on Louise Nevelson at MyJewishLearning.com.
I’ve reached out to Brownell for more information and will certainly post it here if I hear back. The article is available here (but many of you might not be able to see it if you don’t have access to the journal).
Here’s the abstract:
While the trajectories of minimalist light art and assemblage art have been historically distinct, these movements seek to produce similarly charged atmospheres that transcend common material associations. A marriage of these traditions employing programmable light nets and reused beverage containers seeks to capitalize on this similarity, shifting deeply embedded cultural readings of a ubiquitous consumer product via integrated illumination that alters the material’s inherent banality.
The full citation is: Volume 62, Issue 2, Pages 30-36. Published Online: 20 Oct 2008.
I’m about 350 pages (of 490, with 749 footnotes) into Piri Halasz’s (of “From the Mayor’s Doorstep“) new book ” A Memoir of Creativity: Abstract Painting, Politics & the Media, 1956-2008.”
The book, according to the press release, “unites art theory, politics, journalism, and memoir into a fluid whole,” and departs from other art historical works in its claim, told through the prism of Halasz’s experience, that abstract painting should be viewed as “multireferential” rather than as non-representational.
What Halasz means by “multireferential” is that whereas many people think of an “abstract” painting as one that has no subject, in fact “abstract” paintings have many subjects, or one should say many prospective subjects. A naturalistic painting of a tree — the sort that leads viewers to identify the work as a representation of a tree — refers just to that one tree, while a vertical green brush stroke, Halasz would argue, could refer to a variety of objects, say a pepper, a blade of grass, an unripe banana, the spine of a green book, etc.
Halasz admits this theory sounds intuitive. “When I explain this theory in conversation, people outside the art world often get it immediately — so immediately that they are apt to exclaim, ‘But that’s so obvious!’” Halasz writes (pp. 5), “Then they look at me suspiciously, and ask, ‘Are you sure nobody else has thought of this before?’”
Yet, the theory is anything but obvious. For one thing, Halasz maintains that artists bring their unconscious minds (in the Freudian sense of the term) into their art, and that psychoanalysis ought to play a role in interpreting works. This sort of claim takes a lot of guts given the way Freud’s theories are typically abused by scholars today.
I will get into more specific details of Halasz’s book in later posts, but for now, I would like to make several general points about the book:
- Whether one agrees or disagrees with her politics (and I certainly do not agree with everything she says), Halasz brings a fascinating perspective on the media to the table. In a time where newsrooms appear (tragically) to be going extinct, I found it really exciting to read about Halasz’s experiences as a writer (and the first woman writer to write a cover, “Swinging London“) for Time.
- Where it is fashionable in academia to denounce and renounce Clement Greenberg, Halasz speaks about the great art critic from experience. To be fair, Greenberg has no chance to reply, and all we have to go on is Halasz’s word, but the book provides some very personal and raw accounts of Halasz’s relationship with Greenberg.
- Though she is not a practicing Jew, Halasz does reflect on several occasions upon issues that will be of interest to the readers of this blog who are interested in Jewish culture and identity and anti-Semitism.
My latest article appears on MyJewishLearning.com. Here’s the lede:
Jewish art tends to be associated with European painters like Chagall, Liebermann, Pissarro, and Soutine. But Bombay-born painter Siona Benjamin, whose art combines Jewish, Indian, and American elements, shatters the misconception that Jewish art is essentially Western.
I have also written about Siona here and here.
My review of “Of Life and Loss: The Polish Photographs of Roman Vishniac and Jeffrey Gusky,” at the Detroit Institute of Arts through July 12, appears in this week’s Jewish Press.
In the article I suggest that although Vishniac is very well known, and Gusky is not, viewers should not be so quick to dismiss the latter as the student and the former as the master. In my estimation, Gusky’s photography holds up very well under careful scrutiny.
Image: Jeffrey Gusky, Desecrated Synagogue and Jewish School, Dzialoszyce, 1999, baryta fiber print, © Jeffrey Gusky.
Also see my interview with Rabbi Aaron Spiegel, who identified Vishniac as one of his favorite artists.
Rabbi Yisrael Pinson is director of the Daniel B. Sobel Friendship House in West Bloomfield, Mich. Since joining the Friendship House, he has helped create a local Jewish Recovery Community (and here) where recovering addicts are helped through support, guidance, friendship, and community. Rabbi Yisrael facilitates Jewish Recovery meetings, where recovering addicts from all 12-step programs meet and share regularly. He also teaches classes on Judaism & Recovery. I first encountered him on Twitter (follow him here).
MW: Do you think there is a such thing as Jewish art per se? Why?
YP: I think that when people say Jewish Art they can be referring to the following:
- Art created by Jewish people, but that doesn’t necessarily have any Jewish theme to it.
- Art that depicts Jewish objects of figures, but not necessarily created by a Jewish artist.
- Art that is inspired by Jewish beliefs and Torah teaching.
To me the first two are art that incidentally happens to be related to a Jewish person or item. I believe that certain art is derived and inspired from Jewish values. I would call that Jewish Art.
MW: Who are your favorite Jewish artists?
YP: I don’t have any. The only art that I seek out, is the art of song. I really enjoy old Chassidic melodies.
MW: Is it your sense that Chabad in particular, and Chassidim in general, tend to be more supportive of the arts than their mitnaged peers? To what extent is it your understanding that the Rebbe supported the arts?
YP: I would like to believe that Chassidism allows for the expression of the emotions more than other groups. If we look at art as the expression of the soul, it will make sense that Chassidic leaders showed great interest in the art of song, and some in the art of painting. The previous Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitschak Shneersohn, recounts a particular episode when he visited Vienna with his father, the Rebbe RaShaB, and his father spent hours in the museum looking at paintings of Raphael. There are Chassidic stories that recall the time they went together to a concert hall to attend a philharmonic performance.
MW: Does idolatry still exist today? Are there things you would not hang on your wall for fear that they violated the second commandment?
YP: Idolatry is alive… Have you ever visited India or Thailand? People still worship all kinds of gods, and really believe that certain inert objects have power over them. For the record I don’t have FEAR of violating any of the commandments… I believe that have a different relationship with G-d… I try my best not to transgress any of the 613 commandments, including the one prohibiting idolatry. I wouldn’t have any kind of statues in my house.
MW: Would you enter a church or another non-Jewish place of worship to see art? Is it permissible for Jews to enjoy art of other faiths?
YP: It is prohibited to enjoy or benefit from anything that is related to idolatry, including the joy of art.
MW: Can painting constitute a mitzvah and/or prayer? Could it ever replace formal prayer with a siddur and a minyan, or would it have to be in conjunction with that?
YP: Painting can be a from of spiritual expression, if it has a purpose of bringing more G-dliness into the world. It cannot replace a formal prayer that we are obligated to recite, but can definitely supplement it. That doesn’t prevent anyone to pray to G-d on his own, using any form of expression that is not prohibited in the Torah. At times I connect by singing a melody, sometimes I read a chapter of Psalm. Prayer is the act of connecting, and I believe we can connect beyond the required readings.
MW: Chabad is perhaps the Jewish community that most engages in outreach to non-observant Jews. Do you think art can play a role in this outreach, whether to less connected Jews or to a larger non-Jewish public?
YP: Absolutely. The Rebbe always encouraged artists to utilize their talent and influence to reach out to people that would otherwise not been exposed.
MW: Since this conversation originated on Twitter, who are the most important Jewish voices on Twitter in your estimation?
YP: I haven’t seen enough original Jewish thought emerge from Twitter yet. For now we see a lot of the bloggers, and old media that utilize Twitter to promote their material. I like @JewishTweets it encourages followers to take actions in their Judaism in an original way.
Link here, for my review of the show Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker at The Jewish Museum until August 2.
[UPDATE: Did anyone else notice Obama refers in his Cairo talk to “Holy Koran” and “Holy Bible” but simply “Talmud” and “Torah” sans the “holy” epithet?]
I just finished listening to the Obama Cairo Speech, and was particularly interested in this part:
I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.”
It seems to me that this is an area where art can help us find common ground. In the President’s words,
It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.
Reminds me of the beginning of this piece I wrote on Islamic art (more on the anti-Muslim letter here).
My review about Mormons and Chaim Potok appears here.
[[UPDATE: Mormon Times has reprinted the article.]]
The abhaya mudra gesture from Buddhist and Hindu art figures prominently in William Safire’s “On Language” column, though Buddhist scroll-painting techniques are elsewhere facing threats from modernity.
“Art museums have two central roles they can serve when the world is going to hell in a handbasket,” is just one of the lovely aspects of this great piece on museums and edginess/self-censorship.
MFA Boston gets to a keep a Kokoschka (I grew up loving), which a court said had outlived the statute of limitations, and might have been “legitimately” acquired by the Nazis. (There is also other good news in the Mass. art world.)
First porn literature festivals, and now asking for more sex in the arts? The eroticism of UK-based arts coverage. This reminds me of what may art teacher says is the test of good painting: something you’d want to take to bed with you.
An attempt to explaining what’s the big deal about the Mona Lisa, without once invoking the code.
Piri Halasz, who writes the fantastic site From the Mayor’s Doorstep, writes about my work in her June 2009 column. Piri is the author most recently of A Memoir of Creativity: Abstract Painting, Politics & the Media, 1956-2008, and in addition to writing on the arts for Time, she has published more than 200 articles and reviews in 11 different publications, which range Smithsonian magazine to NYArts (in which I have also published a handful of reviews) and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her full bio is available here.
Here is the relevant passage about the show I was in:
In the Stanton Street Synagogue, one block south of Houston, I attended the opening of an exhibit of the Jewish Art Salon entitled “Tzelem: Likeness and Presence in Jewish Art.” The Jewish Art Salon is a group of artists who meet once a month to discuss their work, life, the Jewish themes inherent in their work, and the variety of sources that they draw upon to create it. In the book of Genesis, God creates man using the word “Tzelem,” meaning “likeness,” but (explained the curators for this show) “the Hebrew word does not imply a visual correspondence. Rather it denotes intelligence and is bound up with concepts of morality, language, and a unique spiritual paradigm.” Even so, nearly all the work in this exhibition of 29 artists was representational, not abstract. A few of the 29 were professional artists, among them Archie Rand, Jill Nathanson, Deborah Rosenthal and Tobi Kahn, but on the whole, the emphasis of this exhibition was iconographic, as opposed to stylistic – few if indeed any esthetic radicals here. I was invited to the opening by Menachem Wecker, who is better known as a critic and writer than he is as an artist (this was also true of several other participants in the show). Without wishing to appear overly influenced by his hospitality, I have to say that I thought his three drawings were almost, maybe even the best pieces in the show–nothing spectacular about them, just plain honest workmanship (their subject: three personifications of that enigmatic figure, the Wandering Jew, as rendered in three different artistic styles).
To read the rest of Piri’s June article, click here.
According to her website, Nadia Janjua’s art draws from her faith. “One day after prayer, while I was making supplication, I became distracted by my hands, and how multi-colored they were,” she writes, “these were the hands that Allah had given me: dark under the nails, brown on the outside, white on the inside, and a blended line of distinction down the profile of my hand.” I first came across Nadia on Twitter (follow her @njARTitectr), and here is the result of our conversation…
MW: You talk in your bio about artists’ capacity to use their hands to create with Allah’s will. Does this mean you identify as a Muslim artist? What does that term mean to you?
NJ: I identify as an Artist, who happens to be a Muslim, an American, a Pakistani, a Kashmiri. My faith and religion are an indistinct part of everything I do, and I don’t feel I need to categorize myself as a particular type of Artist because of that.
I have a broad interpretation of the term “Muslim Artist,” or “Islamic Artist,” which relates more to my ideas of what exactly “Islamic Art” is. As an initial clarification, “Islamic” cannot be used in the same way as “Christian” in Christian Art, or “Buddhist” in Buddhist Art, for historically it’s always transgressed ethnic and geographical bounds. It was more so about culture, then religion. For me, the term “Muslim Artist” really implies a certain relationship between human and his/her surroundings.
In my statement about artists’ capacity to use their hands to create, “with Allah’s will,” I meant to emphasize the latter part of that statement: “with Allah’s will.” While we are the vessels through which the physical creation of art occurs, I wanted to make the distinction that in my belief, only God can ultimately create, and give us the ability to create inanimate work (inanimate in a biological sense, not spiritual).
MW: There are quotes (I believe from Hadith) about the Prophet condemning artists to the fire. How do you respond to these verses, particularly as an artist who works in a naturalistic mode some of the time?
NJ: Well, there are a few clarifications I’d like to make first. Muslims believe the Prophet Mohamad (peace be upon him) to be a messenger sent to humankind by God, needless to say, similar to Prophet Jesus, Moses, and Joseph (peace by upon them all), for example. The Prophets did not condemn anyone to hellfire; they communicated prohibitions or theological pronouncements to humankind through God’s revelations.
Traditionally, Islamic Art attempts to display Divine beauty by detaching that beauty from this world, basically, from things that figurative art attempts to represent. There is an abstract nature to it and it represent ideas, rather than objects. The Prophet’s prohibition of making images had to do with forbidding the practice in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times of worshiping these images, forms, and idols. In Islam, there is no space for worship of anyone as a partner to God.
Nothing about art has ever been literal or straightforward; it is its inherent nature. At best, I will say Islamic art, or the view of art in Islam, for Muslims, is that it’s neither tangible nor spiritual, it is something in between. It attempts to represent a vision of God’s presence in the world, simultaneous with His incomparability to anything in this world. In essence beauty is always to be connected with the Ultimate One who Created it.
Continue reading ‘10 questions for Nadia Janjua: artist, arch. designer’
My review appears in The Jewish Press. Featured artists: Archie Rand, Deborah Rosenthal, John Bradford, and Ita Aber.
BYU’s museum displays a hanger-sculpture without worrying it’s not Mormon, an associate pastor claims Kentridge for spirituality (noting, as I have, Kentridge is Jewish), and beliefnet covers Star Wars’ 10 commandments (HT: RNS).
Oprah helps bring diversity to an angel museum, Woody has to prove he commands $10m/ad (to fight an unauthorized rabbinic impersonation), and more controversy surrounds the Pope’s past run-ins with the Hitler Youth (and here), which is ironic given his recent denouncement of hijacking religion for political pretexts, amidst questions what the heck anti-Semitism is anyway.
