All religions have certain symbols, materials, and processes that they hold scared to them. “As with particular forms, the use of certain physical materials can signal religious or spiritual content”, for example, the cross is a scared symbol for Christians, something that is very familiar to those of us who live in the south here in the United States. ” (pg 282). So what if artists mixed certain religious symbols together to make a particular piece of art. What kinds of reactions would this mixer receive? And is this process a manipulation of symbols or is it manipulation at all? Or is this mixer just another form of spiritual expression? Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary would be a good representation of the combination of religious and spiritual beliefs in artwork. Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary contains heavy Christian influences. The Virgin Mary is a key figure in the Christian religion and two; the gold background, found in Christain artwork, is another Christian element that, according to Robertson and McDaniel, represents sacred ground. (pg 282). The mixer comes when Ofili’s puts in the dung, which is an African symbol of fertility, claims Robertson and McDaniel (pg 282). Mixing these symbols, materials, and processes together, I believe, is a form of expression, and its manipulation too, but in the sense that you’re moving and arranging elements which hold special meaning to that artist or individual. What I mean is, maybe the artist is taking certain symbols from different religious or spiritual groups and combing them together to create a new spiritual or religious meaning that takes form in an artistic expression. The combination of beliefs systems found in this artwork may hold some special meaning for the artist, maybe this piece of artwork is a representation of what the artist holds sacred, even though others find it insulting.
Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel. "Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980." New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
The controversy surrounding Chris Ofili's painting of the Holy Virgin Mary does not come from any inherent message about Christianity, but from the materials being used to convey a commonly known and accepted message. The Virgin Mary--recognizable in this painting, as throughout art history, by her blue dress--is both a figure of divine purity and of fertility, being the virginal mother of the Christian Savior. The single bare breast is also a symbol in classical art of fertility, so it would make perfect sense to couple such a symbol with another of the same meaning--the elephant dung. The artist is not "taking certain symbols from different religious or spiritual groups and combing them together to create a new spiritual or religious meaning..." (Andrea), but is using two different languages to convey the same spiritual meaning. The meaning behind the dung is perfectly appropriate for the image, but language of material that the dung possesses that meaning for is alien to the Christian vocabulary, which sees it simply as dung... filth. Subjective meanings simply cannot transcend the subject. What I do not understand in this painting, and which I would far more easily accept as offensive to someone, would be the pornographic image cutouts collaged onto the piece which even invade the figure of the virgin and make up part of her face.
ReplyDeleteI think that by mixing "certain religious symbols together to make a particular piece of art" would receive reactions all across the board. Not to mention it could be interpreted in a million different directions. For example, just how you and Ethan both have different views on Chris Ofili's work. Stepping away from Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary piece, I think that art with mixed religious symbols could be trying to convey the idea that no religion is the right one and sometimes they are even intertwined. But also relating to Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, he uses symbols that can mean the same thing in two different religions. You asked the question, "is this mixer just another form of spiritual expression?". I think that it can be just another way for the artist to express their spiritual view. But like I said, art in itself can be interpreted in many different ways, and normally I find that hardly anyone actually interprets it the way the artist intended.
ReplyDeleteI found what Andrea had to say very interesting. Making the point that by mixing certain elements that aren't key to what the viewer would believe to be tied to that religion gives that particular piece more of the artist's individual influence. Saying that it is in a "sense that you’re moving and arranging elements which hold special meaning." In this day and age, people have many mixed backgrounds and cultures that they relate themselves to. I thought that the point of the artist combining different symbols from various places and religions that still closely impact the artist was a good relation to how mixed our society has become. While the viewer might not fully understand the objects used in the piece (such as the elephant dung in Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary). For the viewer, some found this to be sacrilegious, but after further research one would realize that Ofili is just paying hommage to Mary with a symbol of fertility. This idea gives a better understanding of certain works that might have been previously misunderstood.
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