A couple of pictures by surrealist photographer David LaChapelle.
What do you think? Worthy or woeful?
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2 comments:
ASI commented on the other board, some of each.
The Last Supper I find to be reflective of just how ragtag the little band around Jesus was, and how undignified is the work He has set before His Church in the here and now. A good piece.
The other, however, I think to be over the top. True the woman who washed His feet was not a repectable woman, and true, He is the firend of sinners, But really, a woman in her underwear (or something that gives that impression anyway, posed as if for an illustration in Playboy. He did not require the degree of propriety that churches tend to expect, but neither did He desire to project a salacious image. I think that piece does that.
I'm slightly disturbed in both of them, also, at the apparent necessity to have Jesus stand out by being dressed altogether differently from those around Him. He dwelt among us as one of us, and that doesn't seem to be the message of either piece.
ed
At the risk of imitating Kipling's Devil - I'm going to question whether these photos qualify as art.
The photos have craft. They are arresting, skillfull, and they have an immediately discernable message. There's a lot of emotional impact in the fact that the image of Christ is completely recognizable, but his surroundings and companions have been rendered contemporary to ourselves.
This suggests a few things to me.
It may be that the artist has some respect for Christ, in that he doesn't tamper with his traditional image. I would not want him to do that.
However, what we then have is an image in which everything is derivative; the central figure is a familiar "given;" and our attention is riveted by the single fact that the distant Christ of our childhood has been plopped down amongst people and places we reocgnize.
The part of the image that we are intended to contemplate (and that we inevitably do) is not Christ but his surroundings and their connection to ourselves. Is it too much to say that these paintings are not about Christ but about us?
They remind me of those "Jesus n' Me" songs that I used to sing in evangelical church. The point underlying all this, it seems to me, is that angst that comes from feeling severed from the One Person we are supposed to be most connected to. We need constant reassurance that Jesus really is close to us - even if we have to call him our "homeboy" to get that feeling for a moment.
So in the end, these photos speak to me of the sad condition of Christians without a Sacrament. While they may be beautiful, well-done, arresting, and socially relevant, they fail to say anything about Christ that would need to be said to the most minimally healthy church. I reject, not the (hopefully) well-meaning efforts of the artist, but the pictures' premises, and the religious culture that produced them.
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