Archive Page 2
“What I love about the Getty is that their displays of religious stuff … don’t deconstruct anything.”
July 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
And “They don’t offer postmodern commentary or opinion about the artwork of the past and the beliefs that inspired them,” says Infused Knowledge. “What the Getty does in their displays is to tell you about the people who produced the religious art or made use of it, and what they believed. Period.”
Does Early Christian Art Understand the Bible?
July 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
As the Semester Turns on “Wild Hare Students,” who “post wild things as facts, and get upset if you correct the misinformation”:
WHS did not get the concept that early Christianity and modern Christianity differ, sometimes quite widely. They kept complaining that early Christian art pieces were “wrong” and “didn’t understand the Bible” and other such … interesting commentaries. Explaining who Monophysites were and what they believed didn’t seem to phase WHS. The were just wrong, and that was it. Besides, they claimed to know all about Monnophisits.
OBIT: Bezalel Narkiss
July 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
He founded the Center for Jewish Art. (HT: jewish-heritage-travel)
Google Bids Happy Birthday to Chagall
July 7th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Art News Blog adds some good quotes.
“Bleeding” Jesus Painting Draws Crowds
July 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Though a Catholic spokesman says it’s moisture in the air.
Hitler Decapitated
July 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
By the second viewer at Madame Tussauds’ Berlin.
UPDATE: The man may have been motivated by a bet.
Philadelphia Jewish Museum Gets $1M
July 6th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
From Steven Spielberg’s foundation. (Museum site here)
Israel Museum Returns WWII Looted Art
July 3rd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
And re-purchases two of the three 1,700-year-old Roman golden medallions for an undisclosed sum.
A Different Kind of Face Paint
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Meet Chinese artist Zhang Huan. There is said to be a Buddhist angle to his work, but good luck uncovering it.
Biblical Art at the Tel Aviv Museum
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
My colleague Richard McBee reflects on three biblical works. Money quote: “Let’s ignore what the artist says and just look at the sculpture.”
Gentileschi’s “Judith and Holofernes” at MFA Bilbao
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
The artist himself had a series of run-ins with the law for sex crimes.
OBIT: Hamilton Southam, 91
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
The diplomat and founder of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre was Anglican but “was thinking the same thoughts as a Catholic or a Jew or a Muslim” and felt “The soul is a more important part of our being than character.”
Met’s St. Michael Relief Falls, “Serious Damage”
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Story here. Image (pre-fall): Artdaily.org
Curator: Brooklin Museum Owns 10 Fake Christian Sculptures and Reliefs
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Report David Usborne for the Independent (UK) and Martin Bailey for The Art Newspaper. Edna Russmann, a curator at the museum, went public with the news and hopes her admission will lead other to “re-evaluate Coptic art.”
Usborne explains that Coptic art is “Christian imagery in limestone from Egypt dating between the late fourth century and AD641.”
The Wiki page adds, “Coptic art displays a mix of native Egyptian and Hellenistic influences. Subjects and symbols were taken from both Greek and Egyptian mythology, sometimes altered to fit Christian beliefs. Persia and Syria also influenced Coptic art, though to a lesser extent, leaving images such as the peacock and the griffin.”
Leonardo’s “Last Supper”: The Film
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Peter Greenaway calls his cinematic addition a “dialogue” joining “113 years of cinema and 8,000 years of painting.” (More colorful story here)
Indonesian Curator Gets 18 Months in Jail
July 2nd, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
K. R. H. Dharmodipuro secretly sold six ninth-century Hindu statues and replaced them with fakes.
“Historical Treasure Trove” Stolen from Minn. Archbishop John Nienstedt
July 1st, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
The thieves took “valuable rings, crosses, and other religious items.”
A “Modern Entrance” to Jerusalem
July 1st, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in front of the bridge he built in Jerusalem, which is supposed to symbolize King David’s harp:
Bridges are instruments of peace.They join places that were separated. They permit people to meet.They even are meeting points.They are done for the sake of progress and for the average citizen.They even have a religious dimension. The word religious comes from Latin, meaning “creating a link.”
This particular understanding has a very deep meaning,especially in Jerusalem,which contains in its name the words shalom,salaam,peace. A bridge makes a lot of sense in a city like Jerusalem.
From: Artdaily.org.
Artistically Deconstructing the Bible
July 1st, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
In Berenice Rarig, missionary means artist. (RNS)
An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Reality Show
June 30th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Not American Idol, but the Israeli “Upcoming Voice.”
SAJA Hosts Live Webcast With Sir Salman Rushdie
June 30th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
“In the Islamic world … the pen of a calligrapher has been referred to as the ambassador of intelligence”
June 28th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Says curator Alison Darnbrough, who was surprised to discover Pakistan has a “buzzing” art scene. But then comes the gross generalization that plagues so many articles on Islamic art:
While calligraphy was praised in the Islamic world, paintings were less so. This is because the religion forbids depictions not only of Allah and Mohammed, but of human figures.
I’ve dealt with this question in “Are drawing and painting haraam?” (in The Arab American News). It continues to surprise me that people, even educated curators and historians, write off a long tradition of representational Islamic art for no reason.
See an example here, where Mohammed sits in the top left corner, as an angel presents him with a map of the Holy Land. This patronizing nonsense about Islam being anti-art has to stop.
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.
“Can a white Jew direct a play about struggles between black Britons?”
June 27th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
Asks Raz Shaw, who spends “very little time” thinking about his faith.
Guy Ritchie Quits Kabbalah
June 27th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
“If this was a relationship being held together by a thin red bracelet, it may have just snapped,” says The Sun (UK) of Ritchie’s marriage to Madonna.