Garden of Eden Exhibit Takes Artists Back to Where it all Began

THE WASHINGTON POST

By Chris Herlinger | Religion News Service

"Gowanus" (2013) by Alexis Rockman

NEW YORK---Environmental themes are particularly prominent in “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden,” which is on view at the museum through Sept. 28. The nearly two dozen pieces on display include paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and installations containing video elements. Of particular interest to the environmentally minded, and those who like large-scale paintings, is Alexis Rockman’s striking and dystopian “Gowanus,” a 2013 work depicting the Gowanus Canal, a long-polluted Brooklyn site that, as museum notes describe it, is notorious among New Yorkers as a “toxic wasteland” reflecting “the disastrous potential for the destruction of nature” by humanity. [link]

Museum of Biblical Art: “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden,” (Ends Sept. 28); 1865 Broadway at 61st Street, NYC; mobia.org

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Fuller Theological Seminary: Where God and the Arts Meet

THE DAILY AMERICA
By Chandra Johnson, Deseret News

CALIFORNIA---In 1956, a teenage Richard Muow committed a major violation against his Evangelical faith: He snuck off to a movie theater to see John Huston’s “Moby Dick.” As the president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, in the early 1990s, Muow continued to see a chasm dividing the faith world and Hollywood with the release of films like 1988’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Through continued collaboration with industry professionals, Muow spearheaded Fuller’s Theology and the Arts program, which looks to link entertainment and ministry and is now in its 14th year. [link]

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Why I Backed a Kickstarter Effort to Redesign the Bible

YAHOO TECH
By Rob Walker

The Old Testament gets divided into three: the “books of Moses and the former prophets”
; the “latter prophets”; and the “writings.” The fourth volume is the New Testament. 

UTAH---Someone is redesigning the Bible. Perhaps your reaction is similar to mine when I encountered this news: somewhere between a smirk and an eye roll. Is there nothing that designers don’t want to reenvision? Does the most popular book of all time really need an aesthetic overhaul?And yet, roughly 20 minutes after I instinctively dismissed the idea, I had backed it on Kickstarter. [Lewis] Greene’s solution involves splitting the Good Book into four volumes, each about the size of a standard hardback novel. [link] This $37,000 project was successfully funded on July 27 at $1,440,345.

Lewis Greene has also made a new typeface and eliminated verse numbers and notes.

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On the Bowery, Questions About the Catholic Church’s Shifting Mission

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By David Gonzalez

The Sheen Center complex encompasses 2 Theaters, 4 rehearsal studios and an Art Gallery.

NEW YORK---The Bowery was once synonymous with being down and out, but, Mr. Howard said, services for homeless men have become harder to find there. He used to work at the Holy Name Center for Homeless Men, a stalwart presence on Bleecker Street since the 1940s, where each day about 100 men took morning showers, grabbed a meal and got their mail. The Archdiocese of New York closed the center in 2011, citing “changing demographics” and low demand. It renovated the building and turned it into a Roman Catholic cultural center containing a 250-seat auditorium, a black box theater, rehearsal rooms and a small gallery. The building will also house eight campus ministry volunteers. [link]

Men lined up outside St. Joseph House on the Lower East Side on a recent morning.

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National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Celebrates 10th Anniversary

CITY BEAT
By Nick Swartsell

The first tombstone of Salmon P. Chase, an anti-slavery lawyer and the Chief Justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court is on display at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

OHIO---The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center celebrated its 10th anniversary Sunday. After contention about its creation and financial struggles early in its existence, the museum and conference center looks to be on a very positive trajectory. Despite debt and a $1 million-plus operating deficit as recently as 2011, the Freedom Center has proven resilient. A July 2012 merger with the Museum Center has helped, as well as contributions from donors and the Center’s continually nationally recognized exhibitions and events. Attendance revenue is up 35 percent at the Center, a Cincinnati Enquirer article says, and the Center’s endowment is growing. On a personal note, this is one of my favorite places in the city, and the news that it’s doing well is great to hear indeed. [link]

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Fitzwilliam Museum Bids to Acquire Weeping Virgin by Spanish Sculptor Pedro de Mena

ARTDAILY

Pedro de Mena (1628-1688), The Virgin of Sorrows (Mater Dolorosa), about 1670-5.

UNITED KINGDOM---A remarkably realistic painted wood bust of the Mater Dolorosa (Virgin of Sorrows) by Pedro de Mena (1628-1688), one of the most celebrated sculptors of the Spanish Golden Age, has gone on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge as part of an appeal to acquire the sculpture. It was most likely created for the private chapel, study or bedchamber of a devout patron, and would almost certainly have been protected under a glass dome and originally paired with a similarly-sized bust of the Ecce Homo (Christ as the Man of Sorrows). The Fitzwilliam Museum has already raised a substantial amount towards the work (including £30,000 from the Art Fund and £10,000 from The Henry Moore Foundation) but needs to secure a further £85,000 by the end of September 2014 in order to acquire the remarkable bust. [link]

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The Problems With Seeking Greater Conservative Representation in the Arts

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ross Douthat

My post on conservatives and the arts has prompted an interesting reply from Micah Mattix, of the “Prufrock” blog and newsletter: "It inescapably treats art or culture as a tool, or weapon, in the struggle for power." Not surprisingly, I have a “yes, but …” reply here. Yes, a project specifically intended to get more conservatives into the arts would tend to suffer from the instrumental vices Mattix identifies. But if such a project did get more conservatives into the culture industry it might still improve that industry’s productions, notwithstanding the problems with the motives behind the project. [link]

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Roman Convent’s Profane Frescoes Restored

ARTNET NEWS
By Sarah Cascone

The profane frescoes at the Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome. Photo: courtesy the Santi Quattro Coronati.

ITALY---For the first time ever, the public will have the opportunity to view the profane medieval frescoes of Rome’s Santi Quattro Coronate basilica, rediscovered during the course of a decade-long conservation project that started in 1996, reports the Art Newspaper. The Santi Quattro Coronate paintings, which date to the 13th century, are significant as the country’s most important cycle of profane medieval frescoes. It’s no “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona,” as reads the world’s oldest erotic graffiti (recently reported by artnet News), but the subject matter is still pretty daring for a group of medieval nuns. [link]

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The Most and Least Bible-Minded Cities in the U.S. in 2014

BARNA GROUP

Jan. 23, 2014 – The social, economic and political values of any given city compose a richly distinct cultural climate—but what about the spiritual values? How does one city differ in spiritual profile to the next? Barna Group’s latest Barna:Cities study, conducted annually in partnership with the American Bible Society, examines a combination of regular Bible reading with belief in the Bible’s accuracy across the top 100 metropolitan areas in the United States. The result reveals a geographical portrait of the most and least Bible-minded U.S. cities. Yet even in one year, the spiritual climate has notably shifted, as evident by comparing to last year’s study. [link]

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Bold Color, Pop Culture and Religious Ecstasy: the Art of Corita Kent at MOCA Cleveland

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
By Steven Litt

OHIO---The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland prides itself on being an up-to-the-minute kind place that serves as Northeast Ohio's window on the latest doings in the art world. This summer, however, it's taking a vacation from its typical role with a retrospective glance at the colorful, ecstatic and faith-infused art of Sister Mary Corita, whose career peaked in the 1960s and '70s when she taught at a Catholic college in Los Angeles and then broke away to become an independent artist.[link]

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Spiritual Strivings: A Celebration of African American Works on Paper

ARTDAILY

Elizabeth Catlett, Sharecropper, 1952, Linoleum cut; 17 5/8 x 16 7/8 in., The Harmon & Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art, Art © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

PENNSYLVANIA---The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts presents "Spiritual Strivings: A Celebration of African American Works on Paper." Spiritual Strivings is a summer-long, museum-wide celebration of African American works on paper, featuring two exhibitions of over 90 works of art: The Kelley Collection on view in the Annenberg Gallery in the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building (through October 12), and Eldzier Cortor: Theme and Variations in the Richard C. von Hess Foundation Works on Paper Gallery in the Historic Landmark Building (through August 31). Together, these exhibitions present a rare opportunity for visitors to view master graphics spanning two centuries of African American art. [link]

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Television: What Happened to Gladys in ‘The Leftovers’ Recap?

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Daniel McDermon

Marceline Hugot as Gladys, left, with Ann Dowd as Patti in
Sunday Episode 5 of “The Leftovers.”Credit Paul Schiraldi/HBO

Season 1, Episode 5: “Gladys.” In serial television, the showrunner is God. And one indisputable theme of “The Leftovers” so far is that God is capricious. Horrible things happen all the time, with no explanation: A man loses his grip on reality; a plastic baby Jesus is stolen; or there’s a supernatural culling of 140 million people. A moment of silence, please, for Gladys, one of the Guilty Remnant’s most effectively irritating scolds, whose squinty glower could disturb a kitten sleeping alongside an altar boy. Her abduction and murder by stoning was tough to witness, perhaps most of all because her final act was to violate the Remnant’s vow and beg her killers for mercy. Even the dogs killed in the show’s first few episodes have mostly suffered offscreen. What kind of creator would subject the faithful to this? [link]

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Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin: Bible Mashers

THE TELEGRAPH
By Lucy Davies

Holy Bible by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

UNITED KINGDOM---There are 788,258 words in the King James Bible. How many people can claim to have read every one of them in a single attempt? Two years ago, over a 12-month period, the artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin did just that. The pair began the Holy Bible project by underlining sentences in the text that referred to image-making. “It made me nauseous to be surrounded by so many graphic images,” admits Chanarin. “But also curious. The Bible is so violent, but there’s something acceptable about it. We’re more at ease with violent words than violent pictures.” [link]

'Broomberg & Chanarin: Divine Violence' is at Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales, from July 19; mostyn.org 

Chapter and Verse: A spread from Ezekiel in 'Holy Bible'

'Exodus' from Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s new collage work, 'Holy Bible’

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Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

CALIFORNIA---Sacred figures all walk the fine line between sinfulness and sanctity, even if we choose to only remember the sacred portions of that walk. That's why the Fowler Museum's "Sinful Saints and Saintly Sinners at the Margins of the Americas" exhibition was so important. Featuring an array of paintings, sculptures, digital arts, mixed-media works, and site-specific installations,  the exhibition examined a series of crucial, and often controversial, divine beings in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, and the United States. The sin is that exhibition, which opened in March closed on July 20, 2014, but a video is still available to share how artists have interpreted these diverse stories.  The Fowler Museum is located on the north campus of UCLA.

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Changing Skyline: Hit by Lightning, Church Reinvented Itself

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic

The Rev. Donna L. Maree offers communion during a mass to recognize the 20th anniversary of lighting strike

PENNSYLVANIA---Trinity Memorial Church at 22d and Spruce Streets was failing in the summer of 1994, and the few dozen remaining congregants knew it. Then, in the midst of their collective soul-searching, the historic church and its congregation were saved, oddly enough, by a bolt of lightning. Instead of seeing the fire as a sign to call it quits, the congregation vowed to reinvent its 1874 building as something more than just another church where people go to sit on hard benches once a week. On Sunday, Trinity celebrated the 20th anniversary of its transformation into a bustling community hub that operates in concert with a nonprofit called the Trinity Center for Urban Life. [link]

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Saint Wilgefortis is a Popular Figure of the Religious Imagination

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

Saint Wilgefortis in the Museum of the Diocese Graz-Seckau in Graz, Austria, 18th century

AUSTRIA---Some of the most fascinating Christian art stories get shared weekly on "Jesus In Love," a popular gay Christian art blog. Each week, there is something new to astound me. Recently, I read about a 14th century bearded-lady who was also a Roman Catholic Saint: "Legend says that Wilgefortis was the teenage Christian daughter of a king in medieval Portugal. She had taken a vow of chastity, but her father ordered her to marry a pagan king. She resisted the unwelcome marriage by praying to be made repulsive to her fiancé. God answered her prayers when she grew a beard. Unfortunately her father got so angry that he had her crucified and Wilgefortis joined the ranks of virgin martyrs." [link]

“Santa Wilgefortis” from “Queer Santas” series by Alma Lopez

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Movie: John Michael McDonagh Carves His Own Niche With ‘Calvary’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Cara Buckley

Brendan Gleeson as a beleaguered Irish priest

HOLLYWOOD---John Michael McDonagh is no altar boy, at least not anymore. But when he was 11, this future screenwriter and director could be found most Sundays carrying processional crosses and ringing Sanctus bells while his little brother, Martin, now a playwright and filmmaker, sang in the choir. Now 47, John Michael McDonagh is revisiting Catholicism in force with his new film, “Calvary,” the second installment in what he has taken to calling his “glorified suicide trilogy.” Opening Friday, the film stars Brendan Gleeson as a beleaguered Irish priest who receives a death threat from a local man who was raped in childhood by another clergyman. [link]

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Why the Jesuits (including Pope Francis) Are on The Frontlines of Faith

CNN | BELIEF
By Matt Emerson, special to CNN

Sometimes called "God's Marines" (not all appreciate the nickname) for their willingness to go to the frontlines of faith, Jesuits form the largest order of Catholic priests in the church, with approximately 18,000 members worldwide. And, at a time when most religious orders are shrinking and pining for new candidates, the Jesuits say inquiries about joining their ranks are surging. What explains the Jesuits’ enduring appeal? Much of it has to do with their academic legacy. In the United States alone, there are 60 Jesuit high schools and 28 Jesuit colleges and universities. They are part of a network of secondary and post-secondary institutions that stretch from Los Angeles to Lagos to Tokyo. A good number of those schools are named after the founder of the Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius of Loyola.[link]

Andrew Garfield is reading “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything,” the Rev. James Martin’s insightful overview of Jesuit life and spirituality as he prepares to play a Jesuit in a film adaptation of “Silence,” a novel about Catholic missionaries in Japan.

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Sinéad O'Connor Interview: "I Deserve to be a Priest. Music is a Priesthood."

THE GUARDIAN
By Tim Jonze

"I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss" is an album influenced by Chicago blues – O'Connor cites Buddy Guy and Howlin' Wolf as influences – and has what she calls a "dirty edge". The Vishnu Room, for instance, is sung from the viewpoint of a woman who feels under pressure to perform on her wedding night, and asks her man if she can just lie with her head on his chest instead "because Vishnu lives at the core of your heart". I mention an old quote in which O'Connor described Hinduism as the religion she most identified with and say I found that surprising. "Why?" she says. "Oh, because I'm a priest?" – O'Connor was ordained in 1999 by the breakaway Latin Tridentine church – "Yeah, well being a priest was just civil disobedience. Although I deserve to be a priest, frankly, better than any of them, in terms of the actual faith and respect [I have] for the holy spirit. [link]

I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss is released on 11 August. 

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Florence Museum Concludes Major Exhibition by Mannerist Painter Pontormo

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS 
By TAHLIB

"Visitation" from the parish church of St. Michael in Carmignano

ITALY---The major exhibition, "Pontormo and Rosso. Diverging Paths of Mannerism," attracted 150,000 visitors according to Artdaily. The artist Pontormo, also known as Jacopo Carucci (May 24, 1494 – January 2, 1557) was an Italian Mannerist painter. His work represents a stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective. His figures often seem to float in an uncertain environment, unhampered by the forces of gravity. The exhibition ended on July 20, 2014 at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

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