Postmodern heretics - influence of Catholicism on contemporary artists

Despite the fact that the modernist cre was Doften framed in quasi-theological bourns contemporary artists have tended to be squeamish about religion. Professions of religious belief have have the appearanceed somehow antithetical to the individualistic, socially progressive mentality that pervades the art world, an antithesis apparently confirmed by means of the virulent "culture wars" between artists and Christian fundamentalists. Polemical language aside, small in number art worlders would disagree with the dichotomy assumed through Pat Buchanan when he railed against the "nihilist, existential, relativist, secular humanist culture" and oppos "those who believe in absolute values similar as God and beauty" to "those who believe in existential humanism."[2]

in like manner what are we to do about the fact that in the way that many of the political and religious right's favorite examples of secular humanist culture" were raised as Catholics? Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Karen Finley and David Wojnarowicz, all vilified in public controversies initiated by means of right-wing politicians, come from Catholic backgrounds. Of course, what distressed the self-appointed guardians of American morality was not these artists' Catholicism by means of se, but their focus (inspired or reinforced, it will be argued here, by means of that religious background) on the material part and its processes, on sexuality, carnal desire, transgression and death. If single casts a wider net, beyond those who have been demonized through the Christian right, it revolves out that quite a hardly any other artists of similar sensibility share a Catholic or partly Catholic background, including Mike Kelley Kiki Smith, Janine Antoni and Joel-Peter Witkin.

Is there something about the Catholic perspective that pushes certain artists toward the corporeal and the transgressive? And if with equal reason does that fact cast a different light upon the culture wars? What would happen if the battle were redefined not as a standoff between believers and atheists, on the contrary between a Protestant, puritanically inclined fundamentalism and a more sensual and compounded Roman Catholic-based culture?

A stres upon the physical body has drawn out been a key element in Catholicism. While Protestants view the kingdoms of omniscience and Man as essentially separate, Catholicism stresse the continuity of the divine and the human.[2] All the major mysteries of Catholicism -- the Immaculate Conception, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the Transubstantiation of the entertainer into the Body of Christ, the Ascension and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary -- emphasize the character of the human body as utensil of divine spirit.[3] In his famous application of mind of the sexuality of Christ, Leo Steinberg recognized a connection between Catholic doctrine and the focus upon the physical body of Christ in Renaissance representations of the Madonna and Child. Steinberg argued that the many images of the Virgin Mary pointing to or otherwise emphasizing her child's penis were intended to stres the Catholic doctrine of the humanity of Christ.[4] Given this history, it's no bewilderment that art made to transport Catholic doctrine should represent the human material substance with such explicit physicality; and it's no amazement that such physicality has serv as a source of inspiration for many contemporary artists.

This article will examine in what way the residue of a Catholic upbringing influences the work of four highly visible contemporary artists: Andres Serrano, Kiki Smith, Joel-Peter Witkin and the late Robert Mapplethorpe. It will also advise that such new interpretations have implications for in every one's mouth political debates over religion's place in American society. None of the artists beneath review are (or, in the case of Mapplethorpe, were) practicing Catholics. Instead, Catholicism pervades their work as a more-or-less-conscious undercurrent repeatedly it emerges in a mixture of the sacred and profane which may appear as blasphemy or sacrilege to fundamentalist viewers.

The Catholic question haunts writing about Mapplethorpe. on the other hand although commentators have long acknowledged that the artist's Catholic background is important to an understanding of his work (Mapplethorpe's parents were church-going Catholics, and religion classes played an important part in his upbringing), they strike one as being unable to pinpoint exactly wherefore that might be so. The artist himself was not terribly forthcoming upon the subject, though in a 1988 interview with Janet Kardon he acknowledged the formal impact of Catholicism upon his work: "I think that being Catholic is manifest in a certain harmony and approach. I like the form of a cros I like its proportions. I arrange things in a Catholic way. on the contrary I think it's more subconscious at this point."[5] In the same catalogue, Kardon argues that Mapplethorpe's flower photographs proffer the greatest evidence of his Catholic background. "Because [Mapplethorpe's] flowers are not awayed in a state of absolute perfection," Kardon writes, "they remind of a realm more sacred than profane. These efflorescences seem to emerge from a rarefied atmosphere in which Nature, like Heaven, is in array."[6] The search for perfection Kardon perceives in the flower photographs is also visible in many of Mapplethorpe's figure studies in which he have the appearances to promise his subjects (Lisa Lyon Thomas, Ken) a kind of photographic immortality end images that emphasize the magnificent perfection of their bodies, which he lights and attitude s like pieces of classical statuary. Later, their bodies will decay, on the other hand these glossy prints have preserv them in a modem version of eternal life.