But today – with the revival of figurative imagery, the growing interest of artists in “roots” and the concern for “content” or “subject” rather than formal considerations – religious motifs, used in faith, and/or irony, are increasingly widespread. And in the “Precious” exhibition, a sprawling and rather amorphous presentation devoted to the very singular and “personal” works of younger artists, the most provocative art is religious. Certainly, all of this does not directly support religion. If the affirmation is there, so are the satire, the ambiguity and the playfulness. And the work is full of images that might disturb a conventional Christian, such as the use of a clown’s face for Christ in Adrian Kellard’s large wooden shrine, and that of dogs in Joni Wehrli’s designs for represent Christ and the saints.
Most of the participants in “Precious”, if they are not believers today, have received a solid religious education. For example, Thomas Lanigan Schmidt, raised in a working-class Catholic family, played “Mass” with friends in front of an altar he had set up in his basement. He also created shrines and icons inspired by the small ethnic churches he regularly attended in his hometown of Linden, New Jersey. Rejecting mainstream artistic trends, he is known for his touching installations and objects – made with “cheap” materials such as foil, glitter, plastic wrap and ballpoint pens – which present themselves as a mix of folk art, fine art and kitsch. Not only do they reflect the rites of religious observance, but also his distaste for the middle class and mass culture which “stifles feelings”.
Among his works, for example, is a disjointed installation in the form of a chapel teeming with tinfoil vermin that satirically deifies pop icons such as Miss Piggy, Pac Man and the Smurfs, sends advertising and attacks the treatment of the white man. Indians. His contributions to the “Precious” exhibition include a dazzling display of “Eastern Orthodox communion vessels” – chalices, Bible, altar cloth, etc. – made of foil, duct tape, Saran wrap, rhinestones and staples, among other materials. , this suggests his love for the rich visual imagery of the Mass in a non-Americanized version.
Coming from a working-class Catholic family, like Lanigan Schmidt, Adrian Kellard offers a large wooden shrine, crudely carved and expressionistically painted in bright peasant colors. Its central image is a crucified Christ taken from Michelangelo and flanked by two crying clown faces. On the reverse is represented the Resurrection. Denouncing “art being about art,” Kellard says he feels it is his “duty” to make his work as “non-intimidating as possible, to provide narratives that arise from our basic needs “. Christ, he says, “has to do with the Savior who is both God and man.” And it also has to do with culture: the same culture that would hang a crucifix in the house for religious reasons would hang a clown for artistic purposes.”
Hunt Slonem’s large painting of Saint Martin de Porres (1579-1639), in neo-expressionist style but influenced by Quattrocento art, is one of around 30 paintings that the artist created on this subject. It depicts the Peruvian saint, an ascetic who devoted himself to the sick and unfortunate, holding a cross and a broom and accompanied by a band of animals against the backdrop of a heavenly abode located in a blue lake. Slonem, an American of Jewish origin but “without religious origin”, became familiar with “Latin mysticism” at the school in Nicaragua and Mexico. His painting, raw and fiery with its direct and frontal approach, projects a naive and engaging vision of humility transformed into splendor.