Contemporary religious art
INTRODUCTION
Post Modern Metanarrative and the
church
Is spiritual/religious art relevant to
the contemporary context ?
“When was the last time you saw an
explicitly religious work of contemporary art? Odds are you can’t
remember. If you can, it’s because it will have stood out like the
Pope in a brothel. Religious art, when it’s not kept safely
confined within gilt frames in the medieval departments of major
museums, is taboo.” 1
Art that is religious is different from
art that is talking about religion. Art that is talking about
religion is acceptable, often adorned with a ventment of anthropology
or social science.
Even established artists such as Bill
Viola and Damien Hirst face opposition when dabling in religious
work. Bill Viola says “some of the critics just went crazy... here
I am a contemporary artist... making a work about a catholic saint”2
,when talking about the title of his piece titled room for saint
john of the cross .
But
why such a negative reaction ? The art world is seen to be an
open-minded and tolerant community in which to work.
Religion
is broadly seen by many progressive thinkers to be a cause of
intolerance and war , faith-based political fanatiscism ,
backward-thinking attitudes to women or sexuality and having moral
contradiction to the ways people want to live their lives.
To
better understand this viseral reaction to religion we must first
understand our meta-narrative upon which our understanding of
everything else hangs.
Three philosophical ephocs of the western meta-narrative are as
follows:
- Pre Modern age – god center of absolute Knowledge and truth.Knowledge based upon revealed knowledge from an authoritative source ie god/godshumans existed for a reason , goal outside of itself – gods purpose
- Modern age (c1650) - man and science center of absolute Knowledge and truthThe human mind through scientific method could unlock absolute truth. Humans are center of reality. Humans are not unique creations but make up part of the natural world , products of natural selection and evolutionary process.
- Post modern age(c1950) – there is no truth ,only the self.Questioning of the previous approaches to knowing. Instead of relying on one approach to knowing, they advocated for an epistomological pluralism which utilizes multiple ways of knowing. This can include the premodern ways(revelation) and modern ways ( science and reason), along with many other ways of knowing such as intuition, relational and spiritual.”
Societal
effects of post-modernism :
- Age of independence
- truth claims are simply metanarratives designed to control
- truth is established by every culture and is socially constructed
- “meaning...truth is created by the reader rather not found” Richard Rorty
- rejection of authority, biblical authority is rejected as totalitarian
- Pluralism - celebration of diversity - morality is relative and perversions celebrated
- Personal choice rules , whatever works for you
- No one should tell anyone else what to do – everything is relative
- No religion has the right to pronounce itself right or true
- end result confusion , nihilism
From
a christian point of view :
When
truths are denied only therapy remains , this can be seen in the
explosion of motivational and inspirational material. The critical
questions shift from “what is true? To “What makes me feel good”
. Sin is rejected as oppressive and harmful to self esteem .Right and
wrong are discarded as out of date. Theology
is reduced to therapy. Feel good theologies dispensing of negativity.
As a result the very nature of religion is in oposition to the
postmodern meta-narrative but this doesnt make it any less relevant
in the contemporary context.
Contemporary
art thrives on the questioning of current ideas and trends , acting
as a visual stimulus to contemplation , allowing the meaning to be
created/interpreted by the reader rather than it being found .
Keeping in mind this definition of
contemporary art, christian art can effectively respond to the
postmodern epistemology by questioning the beliefs in denial or
interpretation of truths and the rejection of divine authority.
Additionally the potential use of parables as methods to alude to
religious messages while still allowing interprative contemplation.
Finally , Good art after all is about
the things an artist knows and since faith is such an integral part
of Tristan's life it is essential that his work reflects this.
Bibliography
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1077292/postmodernismPema Chödrön (born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown on July 14, 1936) is a notable American figure in Tibetan Buddhism
Richard McKay Rorty
(October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher.
GLOSSARY
metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:
- What is ultimately there?
- What is it like?
Existentialism : philosophical
thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking
subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In
existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by
what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense
of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently
meaningless or absurd world
Born again
a Christian who has experienced a
dramatic conversion to faith in Jesus
Nexus points are places
where destiny and opportunity collide or
from a Christian perspective where God's call and man's courage and
will intersect
Eternalism
is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, which
takes the view that all points in time are equally "real",
as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.
1
frieze magazine , Believe it or Not 2010 by Dan
Fox
2Bill
Viola , Cameras are soul keepers , video
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