Should Taxes Pay for Religious Art?
July 23rd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Wonders John Williams.
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
“Most of the great ideas, art, and culture of the world were produced by theists”
July 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
“Or within cultures sustained by a theist population,” writes John Mark Reynolds in “Sad News for Extreme Atheism.”
From Nixer of Shows that “Really Push the Envelope” to Digital Protector of Everything
July 9th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
The story of Anne-Imelda M. Radice.
OBIT: Bezalel Narkiss
July 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
He founded the Center for Jewish Art. (HT: jewish-heritage-travel)
“Bleeding” Jesus Painting Draws Crowds
July 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Though a Catholic spokesman says it’s moisture in the air.
P.S. 1 Shows “NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith”
June 27th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
The curator says the show “grew out of a desire to explore the multiple meanings of spirituality in contemporary art.” Story and photo (of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” [Go-Go Dancing Platform], 1991) from Artdaily.org.
Art or Propaganda?
June 26th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
In the New York Times’ blog, Paper Cuts: A Blog About Books, Barry Gewen reviews George Packer’s play, “Betrayed.” As he describes it, the play is about Iraqis who support the American invasion, but then are “broken on the wheel of bureaucratic and military cruelty” when they help the American occupying forces.
In the piece, which ran last April, Gewen writes that he was so swayed that “when the play was over, I wanted to rush out into the street, grab everyone I encountered by the shoulders and shout at them, ‘We’ve got to do something to help those people!’”
This leads Gewen to question whether the play has become something other than art:
There’s no question that “Betrayed” is propaganda — effective propaganda, to be sure, propaganda that rouses your emotions, propaganda on the side of the good guys. But does its message-y, agitprop nature defeat the possibility of its being anything grander?
Gewen seems to sense that he is treading on dangerous territory, so he poses the question to his readers whether they can think of works created as propaganda that have risen to the level of art. The comments are quite insightful. A Don Williams points out, “‘Propaganda’ comes from the Catholic idea of propagating the faith. Obviously, many of our paintings from the Middle Ages were commissioned as works of religious propaganda.” Other candidates mentioned in the comments include Dylan, Arthur Miller, John Dos Passos and Jack London.
I have often called work propaganda, but when I try to be honest with myself I find that it is often hard to separate effectiveness from propaganda, especially when I don’t want to believe what the artist is arguing. Part of me wishes Gewen would have done a better job of defining what makes something propaganda, but clearly he got the feeling from “Betrayed” that it was propagandistic. Maybe that’s the only way to separate art and propaganda–from the sort of taste it leaves in your mouth.
Prado: Goya’s El Coloso is a “Pastiche”
June 26th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
And is stylistically “completely alien to Goya,” reports the Independent.
Monet Painting Sells for Record $80.4 Million
June 26th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Or about double its expected auction price, reports Carol Vogel.
My Interview with Bea Fields on Y-Talk Radio
May 12th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
For those who didn’t have a chance to listen in live, click here to hear my interview with Bea Fields of Y-Talk Radio and Millennial Leaders. Bea is absolutely wonderful, and the interview was a lot of fun. You can subscribe to various feeds and podcasts on her site to hear the rest of her great interviews. Or click on the icon below:
(UPDATE) Evidently the Blog Talk Radio link updates, so to hear my interview you must go through this link.
Interview on Y-Talk Radio
May 3rd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
I will be interviewing with Bea Fields, author of Millennial Leaders, on Y-Talk Radio. You can listen in here on Wednesday 5/7/2008 at 11:00 p.m. (though it’s at 7 p.m. DC time, so perhaps it will be live then).
UPDATE: The interview has been moved to Monday 5/12/2008 at 7:00 PM. Link for listening in here.
Iran and Japan Exhibit Calligraphy, “Anti-Mennonite” Art at EMU?
April 30th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Closing the Door on Eden
April 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Israeli artist Ra’anan Levy’s “Expulsion from Eden” (pictured) is one of his pieces on exhibit at the Janos Gat Gallery in New York in the show “Sinks and Spaces.”
ARTINFO posts a few more of the pieces as well, including one called “The Seducer.”
I wonder what the artist has to say about the Edenic reference…
One of my Paintings for a Change…
April 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
This is one is 2001-2002, and it is the Old City of Jerusalem.
A Great Interview with MOCRA’s Assistant Director
April 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Julie Randle of the South County Journal conducted a great interview with David Brinker, assistant director of the Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA). My only complaint is the two talked about everything but religious art…
Waging War Against Goya
April 14th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Although often wonderfully scandalous and provocative, new studies in provenance are sometimes like losing old friends. The newest victim is Goya’s “Colossus,” which is noticeably absent from the Prado’s “Goya In Times Of War,” reports the Independent (UK).
The exclusion of the work isn’t just an oversight. The Prado’s director said in an interview with ABC, “Our knowledge of Goya’s work has advanced greatly in recent years, and doubts over the attribution of El Coloso are widely accepted by the museum’s scientific team.”
What’s next, claiming Saturn Devouring His Son is really by Boucher? Oh how the mighty have fallen…
Image: WebMuseum.
“Children of Soweto” a Finalist in Photography Contest
April 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
My photograph of Soweto is a finalist in the 2008 Gelman Library Photography Contest.
“The Atheist and the Crucifix” Translated to Hungarian
April 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
My article “The Atheist and the Crucifix” (in Relevant Magazine) has been translated into Hungarian by El Mondo. According to the editor Gabor Gyura, El Mondo is a paper for students and intellectuals, which “mainly focuses on society, religion and arts. Our goal is to collect some ideas that are ‘avantgard’ in Hungary and always try to show our readers some thoughts from international press.”
More Fun with Google Trends
April 1st, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Here’s another Google Trends analysis. Blue is searches for “God,” red is “Devil,” orange is “Satan,” and green is “anti-Christ.”
(UPDATE) Reader Jaclyn insightfully notes, “I like how devil looks like devil horns.”
Jonathan Jones Worries He Shares Hitler’s Art Taste
March 31st, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
“One of my favourite paintings in the National Gallery was once owned by Hitler - is it wrong to still love it?” wonders the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones of “Cupid Complaining to Venus” by Lucas Cranach the Elder (about 1525).
Artdaily.org has the story about the National Gallery investigating whether the piece has the troubling provenance. According to the release from NG:
The National Gallery now wishes to establish how and when Cranach’s Cupid complaining to Venus came to be in Hitler’s collection. The National Gallery is continuing its investigations to find this out. Any information from the public would be gratefully received.
“When its full story is told it may even end up leaving the gallery and being resold abroad,” Jones concludes, citing Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm episode on Wagner along the way, “so I’ll enjoy it while I can.” See also the Guardian’s coverage here.
India Blocks Jonathan Meese Sculpture
March 18th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Here is an item from artforum which I’m posting in full, because it makes no sense to me:
INDIA REFUSES MEESE SCULPTURE
A sculpture by Jonathan Meese has been turned away at the Indian border. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Swantje Karich reports, Indian customs officials at Mumbai airport took a “drastic” approach to Meese’s bronze sculpture Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You, 2007, which was en route to the gallery Mirchandani + Steinruecke for inclusion in the exhibition “General Sweetie.” According to Karich, the dealers attempted to persuade the airport customs officials to let the work through by citing “traditional Indian erotic literature.” Just as the shipment was due to be checked again, the commission in charge gave up and simply sent the sculpture back to Germany.
Express of India’s piece is a bit more clear.
LDS Church Releases Official Portrait of New First Presidency
March 11th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
According to the Church:
“The First Presidency was reorganized following the death of the Church’s 15th president, Gordon B. Hinckley, who passed away on 27 January.
President Monson is the 16th worldwide leader of the Church. President Eyring, who serves as first counselor to President Monson, previously served as second counselor in the First Presidency. Second counselor, President Uchtdorf, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles prior to his new assignment.
The First Presidency is the most senior governing body in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
I think the painting photograph is mediocre at best. Anyone else want to weigh in on style?
More Discussion on Mormon Art
February 16th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
My article on Mormon art (see the complete text on beliefnet) has led to some interesting comments on FAIR Blog (The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research). FAIR also created a Wiki page titled “Church art and historical accuracy” and a podcast.
Guest Post: In Defense of Art Theft
February 11th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Guest blogger Michael Dubitzky posts on a recent story of stolen paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Monet and van Gogh.
Today’s news that three men relieved the E.G. Buehrle Collection in Zurich, Switzerland of nearly $100 million worth of paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Cezanne (among others) probably saddened many in the art world. However, apart from the museum ownership, staff and regular visitors, the rest of us should enjoy and perhaps celebrate this joyous occasion. The very act of art theft has become one of high performance art, on par with any other. The fact that it is illegal and sometimes quite dangerous should only heighten our admiration for these pilfering Baryshnikovs. And hey, breaking the law should pose no obstacle to an art world which has already proclaimed street graffiti to be works of intense counter-cultural genius.
The art thief is anything but crude. He never bursts into a museum with guns blazing, shooting up the place like some two-bit pirate. As is the case with any great artist, his performance requires meticulous planning, improvisational skill, subtlety, grace and yes, style. The famous 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, still the most expensive unsolved art burglary on the planet, involved a scheme of simple cunning. The minimalist effort saw two men dressed as police officers quietly enter the museum after-hours, courteously tie up the security personnel and cut thirteen masterpieces from their frames. When the show was over, they rolled the artwork up and walked out. Witness the art thief executing his opus with a whisper, a refreshing departure from the bluster attendant to the embarrassing self-promotion of the 21st Century’s “great” artists (I mean you, Damien Hirst). He also forges ahead blessedly immune to the inevitable wailing of art critics.
Matthew Collings Bashes ‘Street Art’
January 29th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Matthew Collings writes a hilarious roasting of ‘Street art,’ which he recommends for folks who “find Cézanne a bit overrated,” in ‘Banksy’s ideas have the value of a joke’ in The Times, UK.
(Image: SOFIA Virtual Tour. Streets are not art, according to Collings.)
Money quote on Gareth Williams, “the urban-art specialist at Bonhams,” who says, “By transposing their images from street wall to canvas, urban artists are now creating a permanent legacy without compromising the vitality of their art.” Quoth Collings: “Poor Williams – how giddy and weightless life must be for him, to be in the business of using words without having any interest in what they mean.”
There is also an Islamic art reference, so this isn’t entirely off topic. (HT: Michael Dubitzky)
Does Video Game Violence Cause Real Violence?
December 7th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
My interview with Rebecca Honig Friedman on evil art is generating quite a discussion on Jewess with one Yisrael Medad, whose blog calls him “a Jew, a Zionist, a Revenant in Yesha and as an inquisitive human being.” Medad and I seem to be going back and forth on whether violent art leads to real-world violence. I will keep tracking the discussion here as long as it lasts…
MOBIA Receives Grant for Religious Art Conference
November 15th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
The Museum of Biblical Art, New York, has received an $85,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for “a two-day symposium and publication on medieval art.” The symposium, “Visualizing Medieval Realms of Faith Today,” is scheduled for May 30-31, 2008, co-sponsored with the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham University.
Here’s a great blurb:
The conference will focus on the Middle Ages when, like today, politics were often driven by religion and religious conflicts. In the symposium, participants will see how past societies worked in regards to religion, and thus may be better able to recognize how such politics continue to work today. The chief aims of the symposium will include asking how medieval art resonates in the twenty-first century (what it teaches us about contemporary society and, conversely, how our contemporary views can uncover/rediscover essential elements of the Middle Ages). The interdisciplinary understanding of medieval art will open a window onto the past and offer a nuanced understanding of this complex society, war-torn and full of prejudices but also the source of timeless works of architecture, art and literature.
Correcting the NGA’s Correction of J.M.W. Turner
November 14th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
(Image) Joseph Mallord William Turner. “The Fifth Plague of Egypt,” (1800). Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Gift in memory of Evan F. Lilly
On exhibit in the National Gallery of Art’s Turner show is Turner’s “Fifth Plague.” The NGA wall text claims that Turner made a mistake in the title and meant instead the seventh plague: hail, not pestilence. The NGA argument presumably arises from the dramatic sky, which seems to indicate a coming hailstorm. This argument also surfaces in “Self-Representation in Byron and Turner” by James A. W. Heffernan and an article on ArtProfessor.com. (Vivien Raynor’s NY Times column “A Bounty of Egyptian Imagery” doesn’t discuss any error.)
But I think Turner was correct. Firstly, Turner would often include a dramatic sky even where it did not exist (much like the Hudson River School painters).
Further, the horses on the ground are already dead, which seems to refute a hailstorm, as Moses is still outside summoning the storm (which hasn’t arrived, as there is no hail). This suggests that Turner was likely referring to pestilence, and the stormy sky is simply a red herring. Finally, one look at Turner’s sketch in the Tate Modern collection reveals that the sky was more of an afterthought to the larger picture.
UPDATE: Some commentators on the Bible address the question how animals could have died in the seventh plague if they were all killed in the fifth plague. They respond that some Egyptians evidently feared for their flocks and kept their cattle inside for pestilence (which only struck animals outdoors), but mysteriously stopped believing in God’s might for the seventh plague and moved their animals outdoors. Perhaps Turner was painting already dead animals in his depiction of the seventh plague, but I still think my explanation above is more plausible…
Pablo “God” Picasso
November 6th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
Picasso gets 30,200,000 hits on Google; God gets 442,000,000. Close enough.
As Michiko Kakutani writes in a review of A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 by John Richardson, at the NY Times, Picasso once told his mistress Françoise Gilot: “God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things.”
As Richardson points out (in Kakutani’s words):
Picasso not only worshiped the gods Dionysius, Priapus and Mithra (the god of light and wisdom), but also regarded himself as their confrère — an artist so prodigally talented, so daring and so virtuosic that he could reinvent the universe. He was a Nietzschean shaman who regarded art as a mysterious, magical force, offering the possibility of exorcism and transfiguration … toward the end of exploding conventional ways of looking at the world and remaking that world anew.
There are many of religious folks who point to art as imitato dei (or even as repairing God’s mistakes or unfinished materials in Jewish mysticism), but few have gone as far as Picasso to truly critique God’s artistic work.