Everyone Has a Cross to Bear
January 2018. Seems I’ve assumed Christian art to be long gone by now. Done. Dead. That having dominated the western world for a very long time it’s history. Well, it is history. But lately I’ve noticed quite a number of artists calling up the imagery in their current practice.
Take the patrons of the Golden Heart Pub in London’s East End. Gilbert and George, two middle-aged and eccentric artists living in the neighbourhood. Tracey Emin. Jake and Dinos Chapman. Others. Before going any further I should point out that while these people are neighbours and drink at the same establishment, they are by no means friends. Gilbert and George are very clear on this.
Context: In the eighth century Christian art gets the nod. The council of Nicaea legislates in favour of icons, the idea being that icons will help sustain the faith. I suspect they do. Art moving in step with faith, reinforcing the changing attitudes of the community. Attitudes toward the crucifixion for instance. At a relatively early point in the history of Christianity, the crucifixion is taken to signify triumph more than anything else, pointing to the fact that Christianity is now the state religion. Later suffering is emphasized, the paintings serving as a kind of manual on the how-to of suffering. This for the monks and others given to inflict pain upon themselves. Still later the point is made that people are responsible for Christ’s suffering, that they must now become responsive to others’ suffering. And with Otto Dix in 1932 it has to do with the horrors of war. It’s no longer Christ on the cross, it’s everyman. All this I learn from Seeing Salvation, a series put out by the National Gallery.
It’s apparent that Christian art has gradually moved away from its original intent. Has become a kind of archival collection that can be accessed and used by individual artists for their own creative purposes. There’s British artist Francis Bacon, well known for his triptychs of the crucifixion. His take on the image: ‘It’s a magnificent armature on which you can hang all types of feeling and sensation.’ He is emphatic: ‘I haven’t found another subject so far that has been as helpful for covering certain areas of human feeling and behaviour.’
As for the East Enders, Gilbert and George are no fans of the Christian faith. They would ban it if they could. Gilbert says: ‘It has caused too many deaths…we don’t believe in damnation.’ At the same time, they use religious imagery and language in their art where it serves a political purpose. In a series called Jack Freak Pictures which has stirred up debate about religion and patriotism, you’ll see the crucified Christ. In the piece Christian England, Christ is sporting a Union Jack loincloth and halo, Gilbert and George on either side of him dressed entirely in Jack. They love the title. ‘Up until the war people would say to someone who was being awkward to you on the street or offensive in some way, Excuse me, this is Christian England. You must behave yourself.’
Neighbours Jake and Dinos Chapman used to work as studio assistants for Gilbert and George near the beginning of their art careers. Perhaps that has something to do with Gilbert and George’s current rejection of their friendship. I doubt this bothers the Chapmans in the least. They seem to court rejection, their art meant to offend, ‘iconoclastic, full of violence and aggression.’ Art historian Jacky Klein. Their crucified Ronald McDonalds, for instance, even brought on a criminal investigation for blasphemy some years back. According to the Chapmans: ‘One of the reasons we’re interested in Ronald is that he has this messianic value to him. When Ronald first appeared he existed in a world that was motivated by the idealism of industrialization. He was messianic in that he was offering cheap food for people who couldn’t afford to be fed.’
Tracey Emin’s work is autobiographical. Emotional. Her tone more neutral, references to things religious limited to ambiguous statements: Art is like god. Art is the church. Art is like a religion. Limited to titles: Only God Knows I’m Good. I Need Art Like I Need God. Perhaps the strongest reference is to the crucifixion which comes up in a number of her works. On a blanket she’s stitched a cross together with these words:
Come unto me
Every time I feel love I think Christ I’m going to be crucified.
So I close my eyes and become the cross.
So beautiful.
The one artist in the crowd who really takes on the crucifixion as a project is Sebastian Horseley. When asked by writer Aidan Campbell why he chose the motif of the crucifixion, Horseley replies that he’s drawn to Christ as a symbol of heroism. ‘He embodies the triumph over what men fear the most, extinction and death.’ Too, he’s interested in using the ‘traditional image of the crucifixion to illuminate the present in a different way. To take something that has been done beautifully before and give it a modern twist’. And in order to do this, he feels it necessary to undergo an actual crucifixion. ‘How can a person paint the crucifixion without being crucified,’ he asks. And how can a person move toward anything of value without pain? Or know they’re alive if they don’t suffer? And he does. He pays his money and flies down to the Philippines. Next morning three Marys in blue and white silk robes appear and together with the villagers they all float up the river towards Calvary. Horseley is crucified. Goes home and begins his series. Sometime later he calls the experience a grand folly, but believing existence to be meaningless suggests ‘we might as well make a grandeur out of it.’
Indeed. A grandeur. Not being into more suffering than necessary, I’m not keen on Horseley’s move to hang himself on that magnificent armature. Seems indulgent. Melodramatic. Rather Bacon’s. Using an image that is powerful to begin with. Recognizable. Emotionally charged. Filled with associations. And then hanging feeling and sensation on that. What Horseley seems to be doing is taking the power out of the the symbol, overloading it with his own narcissism. Perhaps this is intentional but I somehow doubt it.
Sebastian Horseley survives his crucifixion as he is meant to. Doesn’t survive an overdose about ten years later. How to read that. From left to right. Simply moving from one grandeur to the next. To the final.