The Virgin Mary as a Controversial Catholic Theme in Contemporary Art
-a Review of the Discourse surrounding the originality of art critic Eleanor Heartney
In this essay we will look at three artists in Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art. †Kiki Smith, Chris Ofili and Robert Gober are influential artists that used direct icons of the Catholic tradition and stirred up controversy. They have been exposed to Catholicism, and in a few select pieces have responded to the religion. †The pieces made such an outrage that the discourse around them went farther out then the traditional realms of art criticism and caught the attention of politics.
Eleanor Heartney recognizes the Roman Catholic sensibility within the contemporary art scene. Heartney’s argument for understanding the contemporary artists she features in her book centers around the idea of an “Incarnational Consciousness”. Heartney draws this idea of from the work of the sociologist and Catholic priest Andrew Greenly who writes about how Protestant and Catholic minds differ. Catholics are more acceptant of metaphor, where as Lutherans are more weary of it.
Some examples of these differing attitudes regarding metaphor can be seen in the ritual of Communion that both Lutherans and Catholics share. In Catholicism the bread and wine aren’t symbols of Christ they become Christ once consecrated. This creates the belief of God dwelling in the world and being a part of humans by being consumed. Lutherans see the bread and wine of the ritual of Communion as symbols of Christ, and don’t see God as necessarily dwelling on the earth but feel God is distinct from earth. The body has a different metaphorical presence in the Catholic consciousness. As Kiki Smith puts it, “Catholicism has these ideas of the host, of eating the body, drinking the body, ingesting the soul or spirit; and then of the reliquary, like a chop shop of bodies. Catholicism is always involved in the physical manifestation of physical conditions, always taking inanimate objects and attributing meaning to them. In a way it is compatible with art.” (1) The aforementioned quote belongs to the noted Kiki Smith whose work is featured on the front cover of Postmodern Heretics. What is interesting about Kiki Smith is how a featured article in ARTnews (3) was hushed and muted about Catholicism running though her work. Her outspoken opinions and ways of reinterpreting the Virgin are clearly dealt with in Postmodern Heretics, as opposed to carefully handled in ARTnews. † Smith Reluctantly opened up about her Catholic upbringing. (3 p.129) It seemed it was prompted by a friend, Jane Dickson who pointed out how “She has a baroque love of opulence and luxury and she’s interested in the mortification of the flesh. She’s fascinated by jewels but also by decay.” (3) Smith said doesn’t like the dogma of the church and doesn’t claim to uphold the religion, but she loves the spaces of meditation and introspection. Her love of these introspective spaces reflects her other comments on her childhood, “I sat under the house a lot in the dark, I sat in the hamper a lot, I sat in the shower a lot, I did things like that.” She said she would like to make a “non-denominational chapel-but with blood and guts.” Heartney makes a space to get right to the heart of Smith’s politics in Postmodern Heretics.
In 1999 there was an exhibition of artwork from young British artists entitled, “Sensation” that caused a sensation on the Brooklyn Museum of Art. (4) The allegations that erupted around Chris Ofili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary that is was attack on Catholicism. Ofili, who is of Nigerian ancestry, featured the Madonna with dark completed skin, elephant dung and collaged cut outs from pornography. The mayor of New York, Rudolph Guiliani, saw the piece specifically as an attack on Catholicism. The museum was threatened by him to be shut down if the offensive painting wasn’t removed. (1, p.142) The use of elephant dung was seen as the most offensive feature to the painting, and as Heartney points out, Guiliani didn’t object to the use of pornography at all. Heartney suspects that Guiliani based his condemnation on the museum catalog, which featured the painting as a small photograph, which made the pornography undetectable. Another point of contention for the controversy is Mary being seen as a strong and powerful presence. The viewer is made to feel vulnerable by the magnitude of the 8-foot tall painting, and from her confrontational stare directly at the viewer. Kiki Smith asserts, “The Virgin Mary always extends her arms, making the body vulnerable. Vulnerable and compassionate, but to be vulnerable is to loose insight. It makes you exposed. For me, to be that vulnerable, I think you could loose all your insides, losing your self…I am angry that the Virgin Mary pays for her compassion by being neutered… The position of the Virgin robs you of your femininity and sex.”(1, p.159) Heartney explains, like Ofili’s Nigerian influence, Kiki Smith’s blending Mary with Female Goddesses from Pagan, Egyptian, Celtic and Greek origins to “regain the sexuality and the fecundity which the Christian tradition denied her.” (1, p.159) The Virgin symbol has evolved passed her traditional renderings and become more complex. Another artist focusing on the complexity to the symbol of Mary is Robert Gober.
Like the controversy in New York, Robert Gober’s use the traditional depiction of Mary was condemned also. His exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary art in Los Angeles featured the Virgin Mary pierced through the womb with a culvert pipe standing over a drainage grate. The art critic Joselit points out that Gober is an open homosexual and talks about the piece in sexual terms, “Gober’s project seeks not to create an “other” nature, but to denaturalize both heterosexuality and homosexuality.” (5, p.66) In the same way that Kiki Smith feels the Virgin is neutered for her vulnerability, Gober might feel neutered being a gay man within Catholic dogma. Gober expressed that he objects to the way Catholicism is taught and wants to, “ventilate that and complicate that in terms of life.” (1, p.144) Gober uses what Joselit refers to as the “quasi-readymade” (5, p.68) image of the Virgin. We look through a drainpipe, we see through her womb. Does the pipe strengthen the symbol of Mary depicting her as the “aqueduct that brings the grace of God coursing down the stairs and into the city of the faithful” (1. p145) as Heartney explains? Joselit says, “The virgin’s womb is eviscerated by an empty pipe, which blasts a hole in the place where the Son would have gestated. The object of grief, the dead Son is absent: regarding the virgin head on, you can see through her body...” Gober seems to have achieved what he set out to do with his depiction of Mary; he definitely ventilated and complicated the symbol. The pipe is either a path for God, or a place where God would have been. The pipe can be taken in terms of its positive or negative space. This reiterates the Marian duality expressed by Smith, “Vulnerable and compassionate, but to be vulnerable is to loose insight.” (1, p.159) As Linda Ekstrom writes in the National Catholic Reporter felt Gober “had taken license with one of their sacred symbols”. (6) She responds to the outraged Catholic masses with calm assertions of how “reinterpretation of sacred imagery can help keep religion honest.” She points out how religious symbols have been used in “highly political, territorial and oppressive” ends. She accepts how the Marian figure as “leaked out” of the institutional church and into the world through various “sightings” around the world. (6) By not censoring religious symbols and allowing overlaps in the art world and religion to occur, she sees potential for influencing theological notions because of how it challenges the status quo. Heartney relates Ofili and Gober’s use of the Virgin Symbol this way, “[they] touch on the Virgin Mary’s problematic role in Catholic doctrine. Ofili’s works make sly reference to official denials of Mary’s sexual nature, while Gober’s suggests that her purity need not be synonymous with sterility.” (1 p.146)
Another good point Sue Taylor brings up in her critique of Postmodern Heretics is why the artists and her self are no longer practicing Catholics. Could the experience of “consuming” or “swallowing” an artwork or idea be related to the ritual of Communion where we consume Christ’s flesh? Can the hallowed ground of art galleries reflect the sacred spaces of the religious? Looks like glimmer of a unifying idea, sure to stir up controversy.
1. Heartney, Eleanor. Postmodern Heretics. New York: Midmarch Arts Press. 2004
2. Taylor, Sue. "A New Catholic Iconography?" Art in America Feb 2005: p39-41
3. Boodro, Michael. "Blood, Spit and beauty." ARTnews, Mar 1994, p.196
4. Baker, Elizabeth C.. “Sacred or profane?” Art in America, Nov 1999, p.39
5. Joselit, David. “Poetics of the Drain” Art in America, Dec 1997, p.65
6. Ekstrom, Linda. “Gober’s Mary fires debate on art, religion.” National Catholic Reporter, December 5, 1997, p.18
7. Mullarkey, Maureen. “Art-Smart Catholicism” Crisis Magazine, Sept. 2004, p.50
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