NEWS FEATURE: Exhibit Explores `Rich and Vital’ Aspects of Faith

c. 2000 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ Walking through the gallery of the American Bible Society (ABS), it is easy to feel as if you are in any other Manhattan contemporary art exhibit. Some of the forms are abstract, and some utilize mixed media. Many of the pieces are striking and fresh. But there […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Walking through the gallery of the American Bible Society (ABS), it is easy to feel as if you are in any other Manhattan contemporary art exhibit.

Some of the forms are abstract, and some utilize mixed media. Many of the pieces are striking and fresh. But there is a traditional source at the heart of all of the 50 pieces displayed: Each is a meditation on what Ena Heller, the director of the ABS gallery, calls the “truths and mysteries of the Bible.”


“The Word as Art: Contemporary Renderings,” casts light on what Heller describes as a “rich and vital” but often overlooked segment of contemporary art: work that affirms biblically inspired religious faith. The exhibit of paintings, sculptures, collages, photographs, stained-glass panels and mixed media works by 14 artists from the United States, Israel and South Korea has four different groupings: Old and New Testament narrative; modern icons; biblical meditations; and “Living Word.”

Mary McCleary’s large-scale collages update biblical stories by placing them in the context of rural Texas. Ioana Datcu’s combination of photographs and painting modernizes the tradition of Byzantine iconic art. Donald Forsythe’s 12-part panel construction depicts the cycle of death and birth, suggesting the life of the early Christian church. And Keith Duncan’s “biblical-political” paintings of Harlem suggests the everyday spirituality of the inner city.

The exhibit, said Heller, is a way “to think differently about biblical art” and _ not coincidentally _ inspire visitors to read the Bible with a fresh perspective.

The terms “contemporary art” and the Bible have not often been linked. When they have, contemporary biblical art may evoke images of second-rate sentimental kitsch. Or controversial art meant to provoke, such as Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” the famous photograph of a crucifix being dipped in the artist’s own urine.

The art displayed in “The Word as Art” is of a different sort. The artists represented affirm their faith through the use of biblical images _ some obvious and some veiled. They vary from the use of floor nails to suggest Jesus’ crown of thorns in Sandra Bowden’s tactile painting “It is Finished” to the far more abstract representation of “The Vision of the Throne,” a 20-sculpture installation by Korean Dong Hee Suh representing a text from the Book of Revelation.

Heller marvels at the variety of art on display, saying, “there is no one formula” for contemporary biblical art. “It is living and extraordinarily varied,” she said. It is also deeply felt, something that has often caused practical roadblocks for the artists. “It is often hard for these artists” Heller said. “Commercial galleries don’t want to exhibit explicitly religious art.”

In an essay that appears in the catalog accompanying the exhibit, Heller recounts the experience of artist Bruce Herman, whose vivid oil paintings appear in “The Word as Art.”


A museum director had seen some of Herman’s paintings and, Heller recounts,admired their “formal qualities and powerful expressionism but said he found it hard to believe that serious artists would, in this day and age, attempt `meant’ religious imagery.”

Herman’s response, Heller said, was pointed and “could serve as a motto” for the exhibit. “I blunder like a bull in a china shop of recent art history,” Herman said, “ignoring the taboos and continuing to paint what seems in the secular world to be the new forbidden fruit: `meant’ Christian imagery.”

Some of the most vivid images are found in Mary McCleary’s “The Prodigal Son,” a mixed media collage based on the famous passage from Luke 15:11-31.

Here the story is turned into a Texas homecoming and barbeque, utilizing what the artist calls “trivial, foolish and temporal” materials such as wire,glass and string to represent “what is significant, timeless and transcendent.”

Like all contemporary art _ and contemporary understandings of art _ the exhibit invites multiple interpretations of meaning. While the Bible is used as the source of inspiration, Heller said, “the relationship of the works to the text is varied and multi-layered.”

“There are many different levels of dialogue possible,” she said.

(The exhibit continues at the American Bible Society, 1865 Broadway in New York City, through Oct. 21. For more information: see http://www.americanbible.org.)


KRE END HERLINGER

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!