Curated by Neysa Page-Lieberman November 16, 2009 - February 13, 2010 Glass Curtain Gallery Columbia College Chicago
CONTENTS
Essays Suspending Dis/Belief Neysa Page-Lieberman Dismantling the Ark Stephen T. Asma, PhD Works Exhibited Acknowledgements
Suspending Dis/Belief By Neysa Page-Lieberman, Curator
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and lending the individual towards freedom.” - Albert Einstein
“He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The exhibition Dis/Believer gives focus to contemporary artists who engage in ideas and moments when science and religion meet and/or collide. The concept is inspired by the ever-deepening conflict surrounding the reconciliation of scientific theory and spiritual faith, due in part to an explosive rebirth of religious fundamentalism and the rivaling exponential discoveries in science. Debates on the compatibility of the natural and supernatural are raging in many forms of media including literature, music, film, television, radio, blogs and more, and often feature scientist versus theologian, atheist opposed to fundamentalist, and evolutionist against creationist. As people search for common ground or assert that the two sides are diametrically opposed, the resulting dialogue is at once illuminating, divisive and exhilarating. Despite the pervasiveness of this discourse, little focus has been given to the contributions of contem-
porary visual art. However, many artists are grappling with this concern and they are poised to expand the conversation in provocative and enlightening directions. Dis/Believer gathers recent artwork of highly disparate perspectives in a wide-ranging conversation that explores intersections of science and religion. The concerns, questions and resolutions offered in the exhibition result from inquiries into the ethics of biotechnology, predictions of apocalypse, causes of war, health and healing, technology’s role in faith, sustainability of the planet, obsessions with outer space, and the clashing of modern day ideas with ancient teachings. In contrast to this emotionally and politically charged subject, many works in this exhibit engage audiences with sheer aesthetic beauty, interactivity or irreverent humor, providing an entry point for subjects that often seem inaccessible. The work in Dis/Believer
demonstrates that the visual arts offer fascinating approaches and unique perspectives on the complex conversation surrounding the interaction of science and religion. Artists Trong Nguyen and Kysa Johnson deconstruct iconic Renaissance paintings to reconsider biblical events through a contemporary lens. In Trong Nguyen’s deejay-battle-cum-dinner-party Last Supper at CERN, the artist remixes Da Vinci’s famous painting. Using Da Vinci’s composition as a guide, Nguyen’s dinner table features thirteen turntables in the exact position of the original figures’ heads, where spaghetti strands spell out messages like black vinyl “thought bubbles” that mimic a conversation. Re-setting the context in today’s hi-tech, text message-obsessed culture, Nguyen replaces Christ’s original conversation with his disciples with witty banter about the discovery of the Higgs boson. Often referred to as the “God Particle,” the Higgs boson is a massive particle that is predicted to exist in particle physics. Researchers at Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, are currently conducting experiments to detect the existence of the Higgs, which might help explain the origin of the universe. Ngyuen’s choice of The Last Supper may reference Da Vinci’s paradoxical identity. Equally fascinated by art and science, the artist known for painting some of the world’s most beloved religious works was a scientist and some scholars suggest agnostic. Would Da Vinci have been inspired to re-mix his own composition to theorize the discovery of the Higgs and The Big Bang? Nguyen’s Last Supper conversation unravels on the spinning plates of pasta, and opposed to Da Vinci’s climactic moment (“one of you shall betray me”), Nguyen’s central figure kicks off the topic of the momentous discovery of the Higgs with “What God?!” Kysa Johnson’s magnified molecular structures of chemicals and bacteria form the compositions of classic devotional paintings in Blow Up 100–The Molecular Structure of MDMA (Ecstasy) After Carracci’s St. Catherine in Ecstasy and Blow Up 84–The Asexual Reproduction of Yeast After Tiepolo’s Immaculate Conception. In Ecstasy, Johnson connects a 16thcentury depiction of an intense religious experience to a 21st-century recreational drug used to achieve a similar state of euphoria. The artist positions the effects of a drug originally developed by chemists for therapy on equal footing with a saint’s divine exchange, suggesting how both chemical substances
and spirituality are sought for enlightenment. In Asexual Reproduction, a Tiepolo painting of the Virgin Mary is the foundation for drawings of yeast colonies. Asexual reproduction is a process that can occur naturally, not only in bacteria and yeast, but in several species of animals too. The artist compares the idea of “Immaculate Conception” a common theme in many origin myths, with a natural process of regeneration, or as she calls, “the natural and the divine, the biological and ideological.” Johnson’s work challenges the notion and meaning of “sacred,” suggesting that perceived miraculous events are not unique to the spiritual realm, but may occur from the microscopic to the macroscopic, and can be appreciated in their respective contexts. CarianaCarianne and Marci MacGuffie test the limits of science and religion, and incorporate their findings into their art and daily lives. CarianaCarianne describe themselves as “one that became two,” and Drawing and Being Drawn charts their process of creating a dual life form in a singular body. Through a multimedia installation comprised of patent drawings, sculptural prototypes and video, CarianaCarianne explore the moral, political and legal implications of advances in biotechnology and investigate the act of creating new life. They state: “[The theorizing of] patenting a life form for a doubled body seems absurd, irrational and impossible. Yet, each invention either already exists in nature or has been previously invented.” The scenarios, alterations and inventions concerning duality and doubled identity are not so different than many things commonly accepted in religion and science: people accept that gods have both a human and spiritual counterpart, and experiments in human and animal cloning are continually advancing. While some relegate this concept to the world of sci-fi fantasy, Drawing and Being Drawn defies expectations with its straightforward, clearly outlined models, drawings and even games. By presenting these complex ideas through mundane materials and tools that everyone has at their disposal, CarianaCarianne suggest that anyone can augment their identity. Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead may have had artists like Marci MacGuffie in mind when writing, “Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.” MacGuffie’s Saddle Blanket is filled with intricate patterns and motifs, mysterious numbers and codes, all of which provide a peek into the artist’s process. A self- described “frenetic enthusiast... who embraces all energetic forces as more than arbitrary occur-
rences,” MacGuffie observes “coincidences” in her life and carefully documents them until patterns start to emerge. These patterns or repetitions make their way into the designs of her compositions, and the entire process of documentation and interpretation has become a self-prescribed religion that gives her life structure and provides creative inspiration. This custom-built belief system draws from such disparate sources as her Judeo-Christian background, ancient calendar systems, mathematical equations, the circadian rhythm of bees and old school party games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Phrases from religious texts are clipped and reassembled with new meaning, and cosmological symbols represent momentous events. Shaped like a saddle blanket that “protects a donkey from baggage, literally and metaphorically,” explains MacGuffie, the work suggests that for some it is better to purge the teachings and notions of the past and create one’s own spiritual and ethical guide. MacGuffie’s system balances order and chaos, flux and stasis, and for her has become more useful and fulfilling than science or religion could provide. Industry of the Ordinary and Teresa Diehl focus on transformation and ephemerality through their use of material that undergoes a phase change (melt) under certain conditions, and that symbolizes the fragility of belief systems. Industry of the Ordinary’s Ten, 2009 (first edition, 2003) points to the potential vulnerabilities in unwavering faith. The title, Ten, refers to the Ten Commandments, which the artists have re-created as an ice sculpture. This depiction is based on the infamous monument commissioned by Judge Moore in Alabama in 2003, which he notoriously placed in his courthouse, setting off a nationwide Constitutional debate about the separation of church and state. In the 2003 edition, the artists wheeled the sculpture down Chicago’s bustling Michigan Avenue. As the piece melted, water was collected, bottled and distributed to a gathering audience, a gesture of kindness and generosity that stood in ironic contrast to the bitter fight raging about Judge Moore’s sculpture. In this 2009 version where the water is distributed to opening night attendees, Industry of the Ordinary adds a new layer of meaning to Ten which addresses the connotations of water in culture, religion and sustainability. Water becomes a metaphor for ideas deemed to be “fluid,” or open to interpretation. The group states: “Water can exist on Earth in three
forms. This is unique in our solar system, a necessary situation for life on this planet, and in large part a consequence of our distance from the sun. For some, this is merely a slice of cosmic luck… . Others have Faith in a guiding hand.” The Ten Commandments, sacred guiding principles for many religions, are melting and changing chemical states. Perhaps it is a call for greater tolerance and generosity, since notions understood through science or religion can suddenly change when challenged. The gleaming chandelier-like installation, The Last Lullaby, was inspired by Teresa Diehl’s trip to her native country, Lebanon, which happened to coincide with the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006. Present during the missile attack, the artist was deeply affected: “Emotions get so filtered and anesthetized, they become removed from the terror of its reality. Only when you become part of it, the reality of the situation awakens a deep understanding.” This understanding is manifested here through a message of tolerance for political, cultural and religious differences. The installation incorporates hundreds of finely sculpted miniature lambs, missiles and helicopters made from glycerin soap. They hang above a recreated Lebanese village, also made of glycerin, that is slowly melting on a heated metal plate. The animals appear bucolic and innocent, but when paired with missiles or liquefied by heat, they connote biblical images of lambs going to slaughter and reference the sacrifices of war. The paradox of imagery extends to the enveloping sound, haunting music of women singing lullabies that is alternately comforting and foreboding. Diehl chose a glycerin-based medium because glycerin is used in both the making of explosives and as a purifying agent in soap. The material becomes a vehicle to suggest an overlay between purification and destruction. The relationship of science and religion is examined through the role that each played in exacerbating the 2006 war: ethnic and religious differences fueled the conflict and technology unearthed the tools of weaponry. The slowly liquefying village serves as a great equalizer, symbolizing loss of life on both sides and reminding that all humans share a biological make-up and perish in the same way. The work of The Glue Society, Sandra Yagi and Joe Meiser examine vulnerabilities, not merely in human beings, but also their dependence on certain sources of knowledge. When the Australian art and design collective, The Glue Society, first showed God’s Eye
View in December 2007, the piece created a media frenzy. Upon reading the accompanying text which described, “four biblical events as viewed with satellite photography in the style of Google Earth,” viewers were shocked and disoriented by the claim. The collective expanded: “technology now allows events which may or may not have happened to be visualized and made to appear dramatically real... . As a method of representation [satellite photography] is so trusted, it has been interesting to mess with that trust.” The work draws connections between sources most relied on for providing truth, clarity and guidance—religious texts and the internet.
face of our essential nature.” The figure of Noah is recast in modern times, addressing current issues. Noah is surrounded by animals, but not those mentioned in the Noah’s Ark story. Rather, Yagi has inserted into the story animals that are extinct, endangered or, like the mastodon, had not been reconstructed by paleontologists at the time the story was recorded. Noah is simultaneously confronted by notions of the past, present and future. Neanderthals represent life on earth that preceded him and a modern ship foreshadows future discoveries, neither of which appear in the religious texts, thusly posing a challenge for some believers.
In 2008, the exhibition Medium Religion at ZKM’s Museum of Contemporary Art in Germany explored how digital media has become the chosen vehicle for the spread of religious ideas because it can be produced and widely circulated instantaneously. The catalogue essay further documents how “religions have moved from the private sphere of personal belief out into the public sphere of visual communication ... [functioning] as machines for the repetition and mass medial distribution of mechanically produced images.” While The Glue Society did not set out to prove or disprove biblical events (they have publicly shared some of their source material for the recreated images, such as shots from Niagara Falls for the foaming waves in Moses), they do reference the extreme ease of creating false images that, once published or shown, become truth. We are forced to consider the ideas and sources that we have faith in, and why one authority is trusted over another.
Joe Meiser’s Stephen Hawking as Elijah, Ascending to Heaven on a Chariot of Fire offers a subversive and witty anecdote about a world where intellectualism and imagination are privileged and rewarded above anything else. Hawking, one of today’s most renowned physicists, is re-imagined as the prophet Elijah who appears in the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible and Qur’an. The work interweaves accounts of Elijah bringing fire down from the sky and ascending to heaven in a chariot with references to Hawking’s research on black holes, where the laws of the universe break down. However, Meiser grants the scientist supernatural powers akin to those bestowed on Elijah and rewards him with a glorious ascent into heaven, or outer space, and freedom from earthly confines that have physically restricted him to a wheelchair.
Sandra Yagi’s Noah and St Jerome, depict the challenges of reconciling the lessons and anecdotes of sacred texts with the values and teachings of today. Yagi’s work is of a classical style, referencing the old masters and chromolithographs of the saints. She is masterful in creating discordant pairings of formal landscapes and unexpected scenery. St. Jerome is depicted as a tortured soul in the wilderness, seeking to get closer to his creator. He is often depicted pounding his chest with a stone to rid himself of lustful thoughts, but here his efforts are thwarted by pervasive copulating animals. Yagi draws comparisons to the struggles some denominations have in reconciling the “sinfulness” of sex with its function in procreation. While the intertwined snakes and mounted turtles are humorous in their sweetly unassuming rendering, they reflect the artist’s assertion that sexual desire is tied to a biological drive of survival and that “to deny this driving force flies in the
While Hawking is being safely transported upwards, a fire engulfs a flexing, brawny couple along with the figure of the Demiurge (an early Gnostic creator of the physical universe), and the three spiral down into a black hole. The figures are symbols for “extreme physicality… who become stronger by accumulating matter on the body,” explains Meiser, and who stand in contrast to Hawking’s weaker body but extremely powerful mind. Here the powers of the intellect are protected over the powers of the body. Meiser explains that the surrounding fire marks the conversion of matter into energy and body into spirit, which combines explanations for the end of life, both the natural death of physical matter and the spiritual transformation. The pewter finish adds a level of sacredness to the object, fitting for an altar, with Hawking the physicist as a resplendent deity. Joshua Thorson’s and Compassionate Action Enterprises’ works consider the use of science-based techniques to connect with worlds beyond human
detection. Joshua Thorson’s films, World Contact and UFO Days document two mid-20th-century incidents involving perceived extraterrestrial encounters. They address interconnections of science and religion through the exploration of outer space and how it relates to the human impulse to connect with something otherworldly. World Contact recreates events that took place in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1953, when a group called International Flying Saucer Bureau sought to make contact with aliens. Striving for credibility and adhering to scientific principles, they eventually fell prey to one member’s self-deluded leadership, which advocated for all members to attempt a mass-telepathic communication with aliens, worldwide and simultaneously. The transcript from the telepathically sent message reads like a prayer, a plea for the salvation of humanity, and was later made famous by The Carpenters’ song, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.” Thorson’s visual environments, including a “crutch” randomly hanging on the protagonist’s wall as well as intentionally low-fi UFO special effects, allude to the human tendency to believe without question. In UFO Days, a police officer in 1970’s Elmwood, Wisconsin spots a UFO and is “zapped” while he studies the aircraft. Three decades later, the town still commemorates this event with a 3-day annual celebration called UFO Days that holds almost religious significance. The film features an alienthemed parade interspersed by audio samples of the policeman’s account of the incident. There is a palpable disconnect between this chilling account and the masked street performers enacting what one assumes to be alien-inspired dances. The official UFO Days website boasts a packed schedule of events including a “UFO Medallion Hunt” and a “Greased Pig Contest,” but mention of the original close encounter is conspicuously absent. As with some religious traditions that transform with new generations’ values, UFO Days bears little resemblance to the mysterious supernatural occurrence it commemorates. The work of Compassionate Action Enterprises (Joan Giroux and Lisa Kaftori), to see, without reproach, responds to the presumed paradigmatic opposition of science to religion. The artist collective refers to this work as a “sighting/siting kit” which contains navigational devices designed to encourage its users to explore their environment. “Science suggests that we can systematically know the physical and material worlds through observation and experimentation… we frequently use instruments
to view, measure, display or record information that we observe…” explains the collective. However, to see, without reproach suggests that these same techniques can be used to explore one’s position in not just the natural world, but the spiritual and metaphysical as well. Each tool has a specific function: the compass identifies location; the teleidoscope focuses attention on immediate surroundings; the magnifying lens is for closer examination; the kaleidoscope unifies fragments into a whole; a large glass mending needle symbolizes repair. Symbolically the work represents the contrasts of objectivity with subjectivity inherent in the exploration of facts and faiths. Experimenting with the tools, while playful, encourages users to shift their consciousness, heighten their senses and reconsider familiar objects and ideas with a new perspective. In Stephen Asma’s following essay Dismantling the Ark, Asma suggests that art could be a unifier between science and religion. Visual art possesses at its core the unique ability to engage our senses in more abstract and open-ended ways than other forms of media or communication. The artwork and concepts presented in Dis/Believer provide a new vantage point for how the “different branches of the same tree” may intersect.
I would like to thank the artists for their contributions to this essay including statements, interviews and studio visits. Each and every artist has been amazing to work with. I also thank Mark Porter for exhibition coordination and his always-brilliant installation design. Neysa Page-Lieberman is the Director of the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces at Columbia College Chicago.
Dismantling the Ark Intersections of science and religion in contemporary art by Stephen T. Asma, PhD
“The Ark was useful to Noah for awhile, but after it served its purpose it was respectfully put aside. As it should be.” Religious artists (true believers) and those artists who are struggling to extricate themselves from religious upbringing both tend to use the symbols of traditional religion in their work. They may create new devotional frames for crucifixes, menorahs, arks, and so on, or they may twist these symbols into ironic critiques of religion. These artists often create inspirational, or alternately amusing and infuriating work, which can be interpreted readily by an audience that shares the lexicon of religious symbols. Many of the artists collected here in the Dis/Believer exhibition are trading on shared public symbols of religious culture; The Glue Society’s God’s Eye View, Trong Nguyen’s Last Supper at CERN and Sandra Yagi’s paintings are some of the artists who work with the traditional totems and icons. Some other artists, however, have chosen to set aside or ignore the traditional symbols. Marci MacGuffie’s Saddle Blanket, for example, seems to bestow religious or spiritual significance on mundane objects, signs, and repeated patterns. She is by no means alone in pursuing what I call the private religion of contemporary art. Such art may have little or no connection with Abrahamic religion per se, but it still functions as a system of meaning and significance for the artist, only much more idiosyncratically personal. It might be that the artist associates a certain kind of fabric or fiber with a life-changing event in her life, and so repeats that fiber in various permutations and contexts throughout her work. Personal totems and fetishized objects, and symbols, abound. A private lexicon of meanings and associations build up in the artist’s body of work. The audience is invited to understand it only by degrees, and sometimes no such invitation is extended.
Whether these artists trade on a secret language or a public one, they share some of the main objectives of religion and science. Through creativity, they seek to (1) establish meaning and order –-in other words, make sense of experience, (2) explore and critique values and ethics, and (3) attain some level of selftranscendence in the creative activity. Art has always been like religion in the sense that it seeks to construct meaning. The meaning question always goes beyond what simply is –-the facts of reality –-to the issues of what should be, or what should not be, or what could be and other matters of aspiration. For its lack of interest in the literal and factual, art along with religion has been pushed to the side by rigid scientism –the naïve view that only quantifiable science gives knowledge. But art is a truth-making venture too, even if its knowledge is subjective, emotional and expressive. Too often, the American culture war between Creationism and Darwinism has put the most simplistic debate forward. But most people are not caught up in the dichotomy between literal Genesis and evolution. More subtle and sophisticated questions plague us about the relationship between random chance and seeming design, between our animal nature and our moral sense, between the emotional consolations of an afterlife and the rational convictions of experimental science. For many people living in pluralistic urban centers like Chicago, traditional literal religion is moribund. But religion has been fused or integrated with science in productive ways and these moderate mainstream forms are alive and well. For example, many educated people are perfectly comfortable with the idea that evolutionary science tells us how we got here, but perhaps religious traditions can help us understand
why we’re here. This kind of position, of two interlocking domains of wisdom, was adopted by Catholic Pope John Paul II for example, and the late great Darwinian Stephen Jay Gould embraced the same model. Gould thought it unlikely that we’d learn anything about morality from studying the material world, nor could we learn much about the material world by studying religion/morality. This seems reasonable. Can I determine my ethical duties to my spouse by doing science, and can I figure out how the electro-valent bonding of ions works by looking through the Bible? This diplomatic move tries to mark out the realm of facts for sciences, and the realm of values for religion. There may not be an ultimate teleological answer to why we’re here, but religious and spiritual traditions can help guide how we treat each other, regardless of any theological cosmic purpose. Or some will say that the sciences speak to our rational need to understand nature, while religion speaks to our emotional needs. None of these divisions are ideal, but they are all respectable carvings of territory. I want to suggest, however, that art is a powerful middle ground and even bridge between these regions. In the increasingly secularized West, art is developing not as a substitute for religion but as a more spiritually impressive alternative –-art, arguably, out-strips religion in the pursuit of spirituality. It does this by simultaneously embodying the personal yearning for meaning but also avoiding the dogmatic demands of group allegiance to orthodoxy. Artists are not interested in converting people, nor do they see their beliefs and practices as mutually exclusive of other meaning systems (a typical problem in religion). When the artwork moves beyond the personal to the larger issues of social values, as so many of the Dis/ Believer works do, they don’t proselytize or say what’s wrong, so much as show us the forgotten human dimensions of an abstract political, military, or religious ideology. Teresa Diehl’s The Last Lullaby, for example, is a powerful reminder of the tragic consequences of dehumanizing war. And Sandra Yagi’s St. Jerome is a quiet critique of Christian asceticism --the Church’s historic fear of the body and sexuality. Arguably, art is much more effective at stirring the moral heart, than sermons and lectures. In addition to the search for personal meaning and the exploration of values, art is also spiritual in its pursuit of transcendence. Traditional religion has interpreted transcendence in a metaphysical way –-the
devotee rises above her mundane life and has some kind of communion with a divine realm (in prayer, or ecstatic experience, or in death). But another kind of transcendence, more psychological than metaphysical, is at work in the artistic process. Religion has always played a major role in lifting people out of the selfish concerns of their little egos, but good art does the same thing and spares us the speculative metaphysics and leaps of faith. Standing before a beautiful painting, hearing a sublime piece of music, or losing oneself in a powerful drama are not merely experiences that are similar to meditation, they are meditations. They share the same psychological roots as the contemplative spiritual traditions of the East and West. Appreciating art and making art are meditations that liberate us from self-absorption. The Greeks recognized this de-centering of the ego and talked about artists as inspired (literally takenover) by the Muses. We still talk this way. As a religious culture, Buddhism has had all the mythological drama that other religions artistically portray –demons, saints, miracles, adventures, etc. –but it has something else too. It has a spiritual interpretation of the aesthetic experience itself. It is not just interested in art as a representation of religious stories. Generally speaking, Buddhism is not morally interested in art. Unlike the moral and theological aspects of Michelangelo’s or even Bach’s artwork, Buddhism almost abstracts the content out of the work and focuses more on the formal elements and the unique psychology they produce. Perhaps the role of art is especially important in Buddhism, because Buddhism embraces a nondualistic metaphysics. In some supernatural religious frameworks, art is a gateway or communication to a divine realm, but in Buddhism the artistic experience is “naturalized” like everything else. This is why Buddhists have been more interested in the psychology of art. Art is a meditation that brings one in contact with the formless non-discursive mind. The above reflections show how art overlaps with traditional religious territory, but what about the connection to science? Art does not discover truth by the same methods as science. Artists do not practice the hypothetico-deductive model, but they do carry out systematic investigations and they do revise their commitments based upon their findings. This may not be obvious when one encounters a solitary painting, or photograph, or kinetic piece, but if one looks at an artist’s body of work –if one tracks the work over time
–then the investigative aspects shine through. The cult of “art for art’s sake” (ars gratia artis) has lead many of us to forget that art is a craft –in the highest sense of that term. A few moments with Teresa Diehl’s The Last Lullaby will reveal the same level of careful problem solving that we find in engineering, chemistry, and architecture. But more than this craft analogy, art also tends to probe and investigate inner subjective territories that remain hidden to empirical psychology. Visual artists, writers, and musicians will glimpse some unconscious “tracks” or a vague emotional “footpath” in their work and then try to follow it out, unsure where it might lead. Honestly exploring and delving into terra incognita, without a hidden agenda, is as courageous in the arts as it is in the sciences. And sensitivity to one’s data is a cultivated skill for investigators of both inner and outer realms. Of course, we shouldn’t overly romanticize the artistic life. One thing that artists need to be vigilant against is the tendency toward self-absorption or narcissism. Here they might take a leaf out of science’s and religion’s books –the social communitarian aspect in particular. Art, especially in prosperous countries like our own, is deeply mired in the myths of individualism. At present, among artists, there is probably too much disdain for peers and audience, but the wider social context is the all important environment of relevance, purpose, and shared reality. Now that I have shown how art can be religious, I want to put forward something more radical and controversial. I wish to suggest that religion should be more like art. Historically, religion has been confused about itself –identifying more with science, in the sense that it purports to discover facts about the natural world (e.g., Creationism is just one of the many forms of scriptural literalism). In reality, religion does nothing of the sort, and this has been demonstrated, albeit painfully, by the last four hundred years of Western science. Literalism still hangs on for dear life in certain segments of society, but it does so primarily through coercion or provincialism. The Ark was useful to Noah for awhile, but after it served its purpose it was respectfully put aside. As it should be. So too literal religion was useful for awhile, but it can be reverently put into storage –all the while retaining the living spirituality held inside. Religion should, in my view, switch camps, or at least begin to acknowledge its deeply artistic nature. Art seeks to liberate or emancipate us. Sometimes the oppressor is political, and sometimes it is our own inner cravings. Art shows us both the error of our
ways, and gives us a promising glimpse of our hidden potential. To that extent, then, religion is an art form –not that different from painting or playing an instrument. It has its own craft, method, and ritual, and religion like art seeks to construct meaning in our lives. And it is not satisfied to take whatever meaning is already present (e.g., neither Buddhists nor Christians want to embrace the world of suffering that we’re born into). With mindfulness, Buddhism gives us the tools to attain illumination and to actively construct new meaning. With prayer, Christians try to do the same. Religion, in a scientific age, should be encouraged to flourish, but in the same sense and measure that music traditions are encouraged to flourish. We usually think that an appreciation of a particular kind of music (or art in general) is either neutral or beneficial, but only “damaging” if removed altogether (censored indefinitely or otherwise denied). Our lives are only enriched by our taste in music, and, following the old Roman motto “de gustibus non est disputandum,” we don’t think that polka fans, for example, would be “improved” if they could be rid of their “confusion.” It is quite possible that, like religion, the polka fan’s taste is a strictly private matter, that, when asserted, is harmless but if “removed” (through anti-polka arguments and campaigns!) would only diminish the person. Like musical taste, religion is an intensely personal business, and when one realizes this truth, many science-religion disputes fall away. Unfortunately, many religious people feel strongly that they are doing much more than just a personal artistic journey. Rightly or wrongly, they see themselves as offering the truth about important things like “history,” and “origins,” and “destinies,” etc. And once they begin in these areas, which is immediately, they are quickly out of the realm of the private and into the public. Alas, unlike musical disagreements, religious disagreements still cause tremendous bloodshed. While it’s true that people who reconsidered their religious convictions to be personal expressions of aesthetic inspiration would be less likely to kill or alienate people who disagree with them, it is also true that such a cultural revolution does not appear anywhere on the horizon. In the meantime, we can join these Dis/Believer artists as they respectfully struggle to dismantle the Ark. Stephen Asma is professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago. His latest book is On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford, 2009). His website is www.stephenasma.com
ARTISTS CarianaCarianne Compassionate Action Enterprises (Joan Giroux and Lisa Kaftori) Teresa Diehl The Glue Society Industry of the Ordinary Kysa Johnson Marci MacGuffie Joe Meiser Trong Nguyen Joshua Thorson Sandra Yagi
SELECTED WORKS
Trong Nguyen Last Supper at CERN (detail), 2009 Wood, canvas, acrylic paint, styrofoam, record players, gospel lps 40” x 288” x 36” Courtesy of the artist
CarianaCarianne Drawing and Being Drawn, 2007 Multimedia installation Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist
Kysa Johnson Blow Up 100 - The Molecular Structure of MDMA (Ecstasy) after Carracci’s St. Catherine in Ecstasy, 2008 Watercolor and graphite on board 36” x 24” Courtesy of the artist and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York
Marci MacGuffie Saddle Blanket, 2009 Cut paper collage 33” x 40” Courtesy of the artist
Opposite: Teresa Diehl The Last Lullaby, 2009 Multimedia installation 120” x 44” x 56” Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt and Rosenthal Fine Arts, Chicago
Industry of the Ordinary Ten (Reprise), 2009 Performance and video sculpture Courtesy of the artists
Sandra Yagi Noah, 2007 Oil on panel 18” x 36” Courtesy of the artist and Bert Green Fine Art, Los Angeles
The Glue Society God’s Eye View: (Moses, Eden, Cross, Ark), 2007 Satellite photography 43” x 43” x 4” Courtesy of the artists
Joe Meiser Stephen Hawking as Elijah, Ascending to Heaven on a Chariot of Fire, 2007 Wood, polymer clay, wire 30” x 18” x 8” Courtesy of the artist
Left: Compassionate Action Enterprises (Joan Giroux and Lisa Kaftori) to see, without reproach, 2009 Mixed media installation Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artists
Joshua Thorson UFO Days, 2008 DV-video and cell-phone video 7.5 minutes Courtesy of the artist
C O LU M B I A C O L L E G E C H I C AG O 110 4 S . WA B A S H C H I C AG O , I L 6 0 6 0 5 W W W. C O LU M . E D U / D E P S
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces would like to thank our partnering departments at Columbia College for their contributions towards the Dis/Believer exhibition and programming including: Art + Design, Center for Teaching Excellence, Critical Encounters, Portfolio Center, Media Relations, New Millennium Studies, Science and Math and Student Communications. The curator is especially grateful to Stephen Asma, Elizabeth Burke-Dain, Michael Clarke, Ronda Dibbern, Lisa Difranza, Joan Giroux, Lott
DEPS MISSION STATEMENT Hill, Susie Kirkwood, Jerome Lieberman, Landry Miller, Camille Morgan, Kristen Orser, Eric Scholl and Kari Sommers for lending their vision and ideas to this project. Thank you to the following lenders to this exhibition: Bert Green Fine Art, Galerie Anita Beckers, Morgan Lehman Gallery, Martha Reed and John L. Murphy, Rosenthal Fine Art and several private collectors. We are thrilled to show the work of the eleven participating artists whose vision and enthusiasm for this project helped shape the direction of the exhibition.
The Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces (DEPS) is the student-centered galleries and venues of Columbia College Chicago. An extension of the classroom, DEPS fosters vibrant environments for students to interact, exchange ideas, and view and showcase bodies of work within the larger urban community. The spaces provide students from every discipline myriad opportunities to gain essential, hands-on experience, stimulating artistic expression and professional development through collaboration. DEPS incorporates the College’s curriculum by partnering with academic departments and centers, the urban community and professionals in all fields, merging formal pedagogy with each student’s individual learning path. In our commitment to produce the most innovative, distinguished and accessible programs, DEPS addresses contemporary issues concerning the diversity of thought, values and culture.