Disney-Britton

ARTSBEAT By Michael Paulson Sean Hayes as God in “An Act of God.”Credit Jim Cox NEW YORK---Cue the Second Coming puns. “ An Act of God ” is returning to Broadway. Sean Hayes, whose lone previous Broadway outing (in “Promises, Promises”) garnered him a Tony nomination, will play the title role in a show that imagines God offering a new version of the Ten Commandments for today’s world. The comedy, a 90-minute near-monologue (God is accompanied by a pair of angels who have some lines) first had a limited run on Broadway last spring and summer, starring Jim Parsons, and was a commercial success. [ link ]

WORLD RELIGION NEWS By Alison Lesley Detail of "Speechless" (1996) by Shirin Neshat.  CALIFORNIA---In 2015, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has redesigned its Islamic art galleries located at the 4th floor of the Ahmanson Building to accommodate a fresher and more modern art exhibition entitled Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East . The exhibition will focus on contemporary or modern artworks of artists coming from or have roots from the Middle East. [ link ]

FORWARD By Talya Zax "Shalev" (1993) by Tobi Khan. Installed in New Harmony, Indiana INDIANA---In The Guardian’s somewhat belated move to honor this period – or, perhaps, a “we’re nearly there, don’t lose your focus” bit of motivation – this past weekend that paper’s “Christianity” section published “ The 10 best places for reflection ,” an intercontinental list of spaces, holy for various reasons, likely to inspire to spiritual contemplation. Sneaking onto the list at number 8, attached to New Harmony , Indiana’s MacLeod Barn Abbey, is New York-based Jewish artist Tobi Kahn’ s sculpture “Shalev.” Placed next to the Wabash River, it consists of a 12-foot-high rectangular arch in rose granite framing an ambiguously featured human form in bronze. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Daniel McDermon Detail from center panel of "The Last Judgement" below (c. 1500) by Hieronymus Bosch Most of Hieronymus Bosch's surviving paintings are now on display in his hometown in the Netherlands. Especially in his larger works, Bosch depicts human depravity and divine punishment with a perverse, if not gleeful, imagination. Bosch frequently worked on biblical themes, as in this folding diablerie , depicting a handful of good people at left, soon to get their reward: salvation. But he held a dim view of the majority: Witness the other panels, full of fools and sinners. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Scott Reyburn Ming dynasty gilt-bronze statues of seated Buddhas sold for ¤6.3 million with fees at the Bordeaux, France, auctioneers Briscadieu. Credit Bardot Studio CHINA---In France on March 12, a trio of Ming dynasty gilt-bronze statues of seated Buddhas sold for 6.3 million euros with fees, about $7 million, at the Bordeaux auctioneers Briscadieu to one of 20 Asian bidders in the sales room. The 15th-century statues were estimated at €400,000 to €600,000. The statues, thought to be from an original set of five “Great Buddhas of Wisdom” from a provincial temple in China, were part of a collection formed by a military doctor in Asia in the early 20th century. “The future of the market for Chinese art is exceptionally strong,” said Mr. Berwald, the London antiques dealer. “But that future is in China.” [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter SHOUT, animation by Ale Pixel Studio In the past, when people wondered how to live moral lives, they could look to the saints, or take their questions to church. Today, some of us might instead turn our attention to art and the institutions that house it. If museum officials begin to sense that visitors are becoming more involved in what the curators are saying and thinking, not just what they’re showing, maybe they will come to feel a more immediate stake in the preoccupations of audiences. They were still temples of art, repositories for the creative best that humanity had to offer. Few people see them that way anymore. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory A. Disney-Britton Ron Mueck's "Youth" c. 2009 and Carravagio's "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" c. 1601–1602 This morning we celebrate the risen Christ, but we should also celebrate that He still has His wounds, but they are no longer killing Him. Usually on Easter morning, we quickly ignore the wounds, but the entire point of Lent 2016 is to "mark" us and to change us. We always fast, as expected by Jesus (Matthew 6:16-18), but on Easter morning, we've gone back to old habits. Lent teaches that it is in changing that we honor the sacrifice. Artists from Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio in the 1600s to Ron Mueck today have used their gifts to remind us of the power of the mark. It is those marks that remind us not to repeat the same mistakes. Lent is over. How have you been marked ?

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen Random International, “Rain Room”, 2012; Water, injections moulded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, custom software, 3D tracking cameras, steel beams, water management system, and grated floor, 1,076 3/8 sq. feet. Installation view, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 2012 The miraculous conceit of the Rain Room -- in which visitors can stroll through the pouring rain while remaining completely dry, as if surrounded by a protective force-field -- is the result of meticulous research, programming, and calibration. Cameras map the location of moving bodies in three dimensions, with information fed to a grid controlling water flow. Where many critics and philosophers have theorized distinct categories of the sublime, from natural to artistic to technological, in Rain Room all three converge. [page 84]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Station 10: Jesus is Stripped" (2010) by Lachlan Warner | Australia. Cloth, acrylic paint on MDF board, 68 17/8 x 59 in. (Image courtesy of the artist Lachlan Warner) In 2001, Warner won the Blake Prize for Religious Art . While he comes from a Catholic background and teaches at a Catholic university, his work often displays his deep study of Buddhish. Here, he combines both. The closing of the stripped and tortured Jesus is dyed the saffrom color of the robes word by Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia. The absense of a body might symbolize the Risen Christ, yet it also resonated with the Buddhist doctrines of impermanence and emptiness. [page 171]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen Ron Mueck's ‘Youth’ (c. 2009) is a boy with a look of incredulity reminiscent of Saint Thomas demanding to inspect the wounds of Christ. Mixed media, 25 5/8 x 11 x 6 1/4 in. Many of Mueck's works have their roots in religious subjects, especially following his two-year period as artist-in-residence at the National Gallery in London, where he studied the iconography of the old masters. No disciples accompany this small, vulnerable Jesus, incarnated as a contemporary black adolescent. In fact, Jesus seems to examine himself, as if requiring confirmation of his own immortality, perhaps in the wake of a knife attack. [page 212]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen Chris Ofili. "The Upper Room" (1999-2002) by Chris Ofili. Oil paint, acrylic paint, glitter, graphite, pen, elephant dung, polyester resin, and map pins on 13 canvases, each 72 1/8 x 48 3/8 in. Installation view, victoria Miro Gallery, London, 2002 Drawing upong the King James Bible's description of an 'upper room' in which the Last Supper takes place (Matthew 14:15), Ofili's thirteen canvases represent Jesus surrounded by his disciples. Each composition features a brightly coloured rhesus macaque monkey resting on balls of elephant dung. The architect David Adjaye reflects, 'Chris wanted to de-commodify painting, to slow the viewer down and make it an experience.' Not only do Adjaye's walnut-wood panels create this effect visually, they lend the room a distinctiive aroma. [page 238]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Untitled" (2012) by Jordi Pizarro | Spain/India. Black-and-white photograph, 35 3/8 x 43 1/4 in. This photograph is from his series 'Orthodox in Jerusalem'. In addition to this image taken in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , Pizarro has also photographer Orthodox Christian pilgrims in Poland, Hindu ascetics in Indian, and syncretic Afro-Caribbean rites in Cuba as part of his ' Believers Project '. He aims for an 'anthropological perspective' in these works, adding that his 'main goal is to aid and increase awareness of issue affecting people and their environments', while providing opportunities for 'critical reflexion'. [page 166]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Ecce Homo" (1999) by Mark Wallinger | UK. Sculpture, white marbleized resin and gold plated barbed wire, life size The Latin title, 'Behold The Man', refers to Pontius Pilate's words when presenting Jesus to the hostile crowd. Wallinger comments : "I was interested in how much of our thinking and morality in a secular society is a residue of Christianity, even among avowed atheists. As a spiritual focus it was intended as an antidote to the empty celebration of the millennium that the Dome represented in Greenwich. It also came not long after the Bosnian war, in which your religion was a matter of life and death. Democracy is about the rights of the minorities to have free expression, not the majority to browbeat, marginalize, make a subject of pillory.' [page 66]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory A. Disney-Britton "Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)" 2014 by Bill Viola | USA During  Lent , we focus on core stories and practices of Jesus' ministry. Lent including this week's Holy Week is about disciplining ourselves in the way of Jesus. In 2014, Bill Viola created a powerful video altarpiece for St Paul's Cathedral in London that perfectly suits this week: "Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)".  Today is the beginning of the final week of Lent 2016 . How will you focus on Christ's  martyrdom ?

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" (2014) by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper | UK. Ceramic poppies (Installation view, Tower of London, 2014) Cummins , a ceramics artist, created the poppies for the memorial, while Piper, a theatre designer, choreographer their planting. The installation consists of 888,246 flowers, representing the number of British servicemen who died during the War, including the anonymous poet who penned the phrase 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' in the trenches. While gathering to plan poppies, participants retraced the last days in Britain for many soldiers in the Pals' battalions, who met up at the Tower before deployment. [page 187]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Oracle" (2011) by John Feodorov | USA. Fur, aluminum, speakers, wire, choke chain, cone, acrylic, and gessor, 40 x 24 x 8 in. 'Western culture likes to castrate the powerful, maybe because it doesn't want to be less powerful,' muses Feodorov . Capitalism he says, attempt to control things by turning them into objects that can be purchased, like this spirit animal choked and pierced by technology in an effort to enhance it. Feodorov attempts 'to infuse the intimidating', he said. '[P]eople have no business being on a buddy-buddy basis with God.' [page 181]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen Gregor Schneider's ``Cube Hamburg'' which is being installed on the raised plateau in front of the Galerie der Gegenwartin in Hamburg, Germany, Schneider says the concept for the Cube came from a discussion with a Muslim colleague, who 'explained that to understand the essence of space I should occupy myself with the Ka'aba'. He explains elsewhere: 'My hope is that this reduced cube might remind us of the cultural elements that we have in common.' In addition to resembling the holy Ka'aba of Islam, it also recalls Kasimir Malevich's famous Black Square (1915), itself a reference to Orthodox icon painting. [page 236]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "For You, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral" (2008) by Tracey Emin | UK. Neon, 236 1/4 in.) "The Church has always been a place, for me, for contemplation. I wanted to make something for Liverpool Cathedral about love and the sharing of love," say Emin . Given the confessional, sometimes sexually explicit works that made her famous, one might read these words as a declaration of sensual, physical love. Yet as the biblical Song of Songs teaches us, erotic language can also provide some of the strongest metaphors for divine love. [page 241]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), 2014 by Bill Viola | USA. Colour high-defination video polyptych on four vertical plasma displays, (55x133 x 4 in.) duration: 7 mins 15 secs. Installation view, St. Paul's Cathedral, London Viola was commissioned by St Paul's after church officials saw this exhibition The Passions (2003) at the National Gallery in London. The St Paul's commission was made possible by a practical but also symbolic collaboration between the cathedral nd Tate Modern, located directly across Millennium Bridge. The framing of the polyptych emphasizes the conscious homage that this cutting-edge video art pays to traditional altarpieces, and Viola hopes his works for St Paul's become 'practical objects of traditional contemplation and devotion'. [page 243]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Auto portrait with 12 Disciples, from The Last Cannibal Supper, Cause Tomorrow We Become Christians" (2010) by Greg Semu | New Zealand/Australia. Digital C-print, 39 3/8 x 112 5/8 inc. In this photograph, from his series 'The Last Cannibal Supper...cause tomorrow we become Christians', Semu , an artist of Samoan heritage, depicts himself surrounded by Kanak tribesman from New Caledonia. His tableau satirizes stereotypes of indigenous Pacific Islanders, while ironically tossing the charge of cannibalism back at Christians, for who bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. 'The theme that runs strongly through my work,' writes Semu , 'is cultural displacement, colonial impact on indigenous cultures, particularly [in the] Pacific Islands.' Christian, he says, has both 'saved and paralysed' Pacific Island culture. [page 55]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory A. Disney-Britton Gay couple in 2004 enjoys Adi Nes's untitled photograph inspired by the Last Supper In his ' Biblical Stories ' series, gay photographer  Adi Nes critiques social injustice and challenges us to repent and change our ways. Repentance is the core message of Lent. After 40-days in the dessert, Jesus returned from the wilderness, and his first public statement is found in Matthew 4:17 : "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven, is at hand". To repent is to change our hearts and minds so that we can re-create heaven on Earth, and there is plenty of repentance that is needed. Thought for today: How have you changed during Lent 2016 ?

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Untitled (McDonald's)" (2004) by Angela Strassheim, | USA. C-print, 40 x 50 inches, Edition of 8. A Key theme in Strassheim's photographs is her exploration of her born-again Christian upbringing. 'Jesus never made any sense to me, yet one is supposed to learn from one's parents,' she muses. 'I am always looking for the one, usually a girl, who seems to be off in another place within this framework because that is how I always saw myself.' Works like this remain steadfastly ambivalent, refusing an obvious polemic against American capitalism and religion. [page 173]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Salvation Mountain" (1986-2014) by Leonard Knight (1931–2014) | USA. Adobe clay and paint. Niland, California After a conversion experience in his mid-thirties, Knight spent the rest of his life looking for creative ways to proclaim his message of universal love. He began by creating a hot air balloon bedecked with prayers. When the balloom failed, he turned to building a mountain out of adoble-clay, which he coated with paint donated by visitors. Until his eighties he lived in an old fire truel parked beside the mountain. His philosophy: 'Love Jesus and keep it simple.' [page 105]

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST By LEE F. MINDEL, FAIA Add caption In this, the Age of the Museum, where art is increasingly housed in grand structures designed by famous architects, it is important to remember that sometimes the most interesting art–architecture pairings happen in small, seemingly unremarkable settings. A wonderful example can be found in Bridgehampton, New York, at the Dan Flavin Art Institute , which was created by the artist in conjunction with the Dia Art Foundation in 1983. This simple Shingle Style structure is home to a permanent collection of Dan Flavin’s neon light sculptures and a gallery space for rotating exhibitions. The building was constructed in 1908 to serve as a fire station, and then converted in 1924 into a church. [ More ]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Amereican Jesus: Hold me, Carry Me Boldly" (2009) by David LaChapelle | USA. C-print, 54 x 24 in. LaChapelle created a posthumous Pietà of Michael Jackson cradles by Jesus, part of his 'American Jesus' series (2009). LaChapelle was raised Catholic, and often draws on Christian symbolism, although he no longer defines himself by one religion. He received his first break working for Any Warhol, and shot the final portrait of his mentor. 'I put two bible beside his head and framed it,' LaChapelle recalls, '[Warhol] went to church every Sunday when he was in New York. [page 66]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Holding the Goat" (2010) by Marina Abramović' | Serbia. Colour-pigment print, 49 1/4 x 49 1/2 in. Abramović began her "Back to Simplicity' series in rural Italy after a three-month performance piece at the Museum of Modern Art called The Artist is Present , in which she sat at a table staring silently  at a succession of more than a thousand visitors. After this work, she said, 'I had a need to go to nature, I had a need for the ritualization of the simplicity of everyday life....If your state of mind is clear it's a kind of spiritual matter.' [page 164]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "East Window, Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London" (2008) by Shirazeh Houshiary and Pip Horne | Iran and UK. Glass and stainless steel Houshiary often draws inspiration from poems on breathing by the Sufi mystic Rumi. 'I set out to capture my breath,' says Houshiary, 'to find the essence of my own existed, tenscending name, nationality, cultures'. In the church, these pneumatic associations take on a new light, evoking the history of the Blitz -- when the original windows were blown out -- and the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit. Refusing to be still, Houshiary and Horne's glass cross seems to contract and expand. [page 240]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Untitled (David and Jonathan)" 2006 by Adi Nes | Isreal. C-print, 55 1/8 x 70 7/8 in. In his ' Bible Stories ' series, Nes  uses models dressed as homeless people to critique social injustice in contemporary Israel. Here, two bedraggled young men -- perhaps tossed out of their homes for their sexuality -- are endowed with dignity by comparing them to David and Jonathan. The Bible tells us 'the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18.1) -- a relationship we might well read as romantic. [page 222]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory A. Disney-Britton "Temptation" (2008) by Awst & Walther | Wales and Germany. Sculpture, plaster and gold leaf, 7 7/8 x 3 7/8 x 3 1/8 in. During this heated political season, America has been labeled "a modern day Babylon" because of how we respond to temptation. Babylon is one of the most infamous of ancient cities, and Isaiah 14:1-23 tells about the destruction of this once great city-state and the death of its proud monarch. It is a political story about God's people being tempted with various visions of greatness including Awst & Walther's gilded lust and gilded violence (above). Today's the 4th Sunday of Lent 2016 , and a good time to check-in on how you are responding to Temptation ?

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "The Station" (2006) by Shaun Tan | Australia. Pencil on paper from The Arrival (Hachette Children's Books, 2006) 'I have a recurring interest in notions of "belong", particularly the finding or losing to it,' reflects Tan . Half-Chinese, he grew up in Perth with a 'vague sense of separateness, an unclear notion of identify or detachment from roots, on top of that traditionally contested concept of what it is to be "Australian", or worse, "un-Australian".' Echoing the Bible ( Exodus 2.22, 22.21 ), Tan suggests 'We might do well to think of ourselves as possible strangers in our own strange land.' [page 124]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Stations of the Cross" (2007) by Shirley Purdie | Australia. Natural ochres and pigment on canvas, 83 7/8 x 45 1/2 in. In the 1970s, Catholic nuns began to work with elders from the Warmun community to found schools and foster worship that combined elements of Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) and Catholic theology. This syncretism is embodied in the silhouette of the sacred stone formations that fraom each Station of the Cross. The torments Purdie depicts are not those of Christ alone, they also refer to the trauma of her people, many of whom were massacred by white settlers in the 1920s and 1930s. [page 127]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Fallen" (2009) by Diego Romero | USA. Earthenware, 5 x 13 3/4 x 13 3/4 in. 'Am I this white kid who grew up in Berkeley [California],' Romero asks, 'or am I this Johnny-come-lately back to the village born-again Indian? And I really think I'm neither and both.' He sees his wok as a postmodern take on the tradition of native pottery, which he says 'was primarily used for the spiritual needs of the people'. His fallen angel reached back to this sacred past while lamenting the present, in which alcoholism is prevalent in indigenous communities. [page 134]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "The Good Game I" (2008) by Hassan Musa | Sudan/France. Assembled textiles, 83 1/2 x 55 7/8 in. Echoing his personal history in France and the Sudan, Musa renders Eugene Delacoix's Jacob Wrestly with the Angel (1850-61) using patterns from African military flags. The title is ironic, for what Musa depicts is anything but a fair fight. The angel's unsportsmanlike move -- dislocating Jacob's hip -- receives a contemporary update, metamorphosing into the infamous head butt delivered by Zinedine Zidance in the 2006 World Cup. Violence, Musa suggests simmers beneath every aspect of human culture, from our myths to our pastimes. [page 138]

ART + RELIGION By Aaron Rosen "Temptation" (2008) by Awst & Walther | Wales and Germany. Sculpture, plaster and gold leaf, 7 7/8 x 3 7/8 x 3 1/8 in. The husband and wife team Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther are known for both their performance pieces and sculpture. According to the artists, they were drawn to the 'ambivalence surrounding the apple, [which] represents an act of corruption, the fall from grace, but also the beginning of civilisation and the birth of love.' Which is the greater temptation, they seem to ask, lust or violence? Are the two connected? And how do we gild and glamorize them both? [page 149]