‘Sad news: MOBIA to close’

     
Sad news announced this afternoon by the Museum of Biblical Art:

Museum of Biblical Art Board of Trustees

Announces Closure of Museum

It is with great sadness that the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Biblical Art announces that the Museum will close to the public on Sunday, June 14, 2015 and cease operations on June 30, 2015. MOBIA will not reopen in a new location. The Museum’s current exhibition, “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello,” will remain on view for its scheduled run through Sunday, June 14, 2015.

MOBIA had its origins as an art gallery founded in 1997 by the American Bible Society; the gallery opened in 1998 in the ABS building at 1865 Broadway, New York. In 2004, MOBIA became an independent art museum. MOBIA opened to the public in 2005, remaining on the second floor of ABS’s New York headquarters and continuing to receive significant in-kind and financial support from ABS. ABS sold its New York building in February of this year and will relocate to Philadelphia. With the building sale, MOBIA was required to find a new home. The Museum explored multiple options for a new site and potential partners with whom to collaborate. It was ultimately impossible in such a short timeframe to raise the funds needed for the increased operating budget necessitated by leasing and renovating a new site.

The Museum of Biblical Art, an independent non-profit arts institution, has as its mission examining the Bible’s influence on the Western visual tradition, and on artists from the historical past to the present day. The Museum has taken a secular perspective on the Bible’s pivotal role in art history, looking at how this text impacts artistic practice in both familiar and surprising ways. MOBIA has been committed to being inclusive and non-sectarian, inviting visitors of all beliefs and viewpoints to participate in its programs and engage with ideas at the intersection of a range of disciplines-from aesthetics to cultural history to religious studies.

MOBIA is located between Columbus Circle and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at 1865 Broadway. For more information on MOBIA and its programs prior to the conclusion of the “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello” exhibition and the Museum’s closing, click here.


It seems like all the places in New York City I love are disappearing.
     

‘Voices of the Sacred, and Sculpture Immaterial’

     
Two events in New York City highlighting performing arts and fine arts I must tell you about.

In two weeks, on Saturday the 31st, New York University Global Spiritual Life will host “Voices of the Sacred” at The Brotherhood Synagogue. The concert will unite “artists representing three of the world’s great faith traditions all gathered together in one of New York City’s most historic religious landmarks. Since its founding almost 60 years ago, through its then unprecedented sharing of sacred space with a Greenwich Village church to its current home in a former Quaker meeting house, The Brotherhood Synagogue has always held as one of its core missions to create bridges of understanding across faiths, a mission that continues to this day.”

The Brotherhood Synagogue is located at 28 Gramercy Park South. The concert will begin at 8:30 p.m. Click here for information about the event, videos of the performers, and tickets.

Next month, on the 20th, the Museum of Biblical Art will re-open with the start of a new installation: “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” to run through June 14. On Saturday, February 21, MOBIA will host an all-day symposium in conjunction with this exhibit: “Material/Immaterial: A symposium on Fifteenth Century Sculpture.” From the publicity:

Courtesy MOBIA

Donatello, Saint John the Evangelist, c. 1409-11.

During this one-day symposium, nine speakers will engage issues around Renaissance sculpture. These talks will both enrich the understanding of the objects on display in “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello” and of the artists who created them, and also broaden the show’s horizons to encompass other chapters of the history of fifteenth century Italian sculpture.

Sculpture in the Age of Donatello

Courtesy MOBIA

Donatello, Saint John the Evangelist, detail.

Twenty-three masterpieces of early Florentine Renaissance sculpture—most never seen outside Italy—will be exhibited at MOBIA as the centerpiece of the museum’s tenth anniversary season. MOBIA will be the sole worldwide venue for this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition. These works by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Nanni di Banco, Luca della Robbia, and others were made in the first decades of the fifteenth century for Florence Cathedral (“Il Duomo”), which was then in the last phase of its construction, and are figural complements to Brunelleschi’s soaring dome, conveying an analogous sense of courage and human potential. Like the dome, these statues of prophets and saints express the spiritual tension of a faith-driven humanism destined to transform Western culture.

The Museum of Biblical Art is located at 1865 Broadway, at 61st Street, in Manhattan. Tickets for “Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” are available here.
     

‘The Garden of Eden in Midtown’

     
An exhibit underway at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City may be of interest to all manner of esotericists, students of symbology, and art lovers. “Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden” aims to serve “as a lens through which to view the relationship between humans and the natural world.”

Courtesy MOBIA.

Study for Expulsion by Fred Tomaselli.

Leaves, pills, acrylic, photo collage, and resin on wood panel, 2000.

From the publicity:


Artists in the Western world have used elements of the Garden of Eden story for centuries as potent symbols: the Creation of plants and animals, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, the Forbidden Fruit, the Serpent, the Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Eden. In this exhibition, contemporary artists continue to mine this rich resource for metaphors that are both personal and universal. Barnaby Furnas’s The Fruit Eaters takes the classic subject of Adam and Eve biting the apple, and renders it fresh and vital, with paint that seems to still be dripping, and a violent and malevolent serpent circling menacingly. Jim Dine’s Garden of Eden evokes happy childhood memories of his family’s tool store. Mark Dion, in a work created especially for this exhibition, presents a fantasy diorama of the serpent, imagining how he looked with legs, before he was cursed by God to crawl on his belly.

The garden has for centuries represented a perfect natural paradise that we have now lost. Several of the artists in the exhibition consider the ways in which humans have tried to recreate a “perfect garden.” Naomi Reis’ drawings of imaginary Modernist buildings are overlaid with lush plants and fountains that, like the Gardens of Babylon or the botanical gardens of Victorian times, show the attempt to recreate an exotic paradise within a completely foreign environment. In Lina Puerta’s installations, nature becomes the intruder, reinserting itself into the urban environment, intertwined with manmade sequins and buttons: a garden that is a mix of the natural and the manmade. Mary Temple’s garden appears as a shadow cast on a gallery wall, caused by light streaming through an imaginary window.

Courtesy MOBIA.

Dwarfed Blue Pine by Rona Pondick.
Painted bronze,
unique, 2009-10.

Courtesy MOBIA.

The Fruit Eaters by Barnaby Furnas.
Acrylic on linen, 2013.

Courtesy MOBIA.

Gowanus, by Alexis Rockman. Oil on wood, 2013. 

The exhibit will close September 28. MOBIA is located at 1865 Broadway (at 61st Street) in Manhattan. Admission is free. The museum is closed Mondays. A pretty remarkable schedule of free events in connection with Eden runs through the exhibit’s duration. Click here, and do take part. You won’t regret it. (I love this place.)
     

'The KJV at 400'

  
Yesterday, the American Bible Society in New York City hosted "On Eagles' Wings," a symposium commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. Four academic lecturers spoke at length on different aspects of the subject, from the political machinations that helped inspire the King James Version of the Holy Bible to contemporary efforts in the Caribbean to standardize Christian worship. After the lectures, producer-director Norman Stone screened his new film KJB: The Book That Changed the World. The daylong celebration complements the exhibition that opened Friday at the Museum of Biblical Art titled "On Eagles' Wings: The King James Bible Turns Four Hundred," which runs through September 18. The two institutions are located at 1865 Broadway (at 61st Street).

It actually requires at least one day of lectures, Q&A, film, and display of Bibles to broach the topic of the KJV and its global significance. What began as one item on a lengthy list of grievances submitted to King James I of England by a council of Puritan elders seeking religious liberty culminated in the production of a sacred text on which diverse religious and political factions could agree. Fifty scholars -- linguists, theologians, classicists, and more -- collectively dubbed God's Secretaries, labored for seven years to produce a Bible for not only England, but for the Americas also.

Dr. David Norton

David Norton is Professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His first book, A History of the Bible as Literature, won the Conference on Christian Literature Book of the Year Award in 1994. He edited the text of the King James Bible for Cambridge University Press. Dr. Norton is a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and of the New Zealand Academy of the Humanities. His latest book is The King James Bible: a Short History from Tyndale to Today published by Cambridge University Press.

Being first to speak, he had the biggest job of explaining history, theology, publishing, and related contexts, beginning with the evolution of Christian holy texts in the centuries previous to the coronation of Scotland's King James VI as England's King James I. Parts of the story are deceptively simple. For instance, 83 percent of the KJV text is the language of William Tyndale's Bibles of the 1520s and '30s. Tyndale (1494?-1536) was an early translator of Bibles for English readers, which made him a man wanted by authorities of both church and state. To avoid arrest, he fled to Europe where the publishing took place, however a reprinting of his revised New Testament was run in 1535 under the patronage of Anne Boleyn, and is the first volume of Holy Scripture printing in England. A skilled translator of Greek with a gift for language, Tyndale produced reliable texts that established a standard for Reformation thinking. He was arrested by Catholic authorities in Antwerp in 1535, and was tried, executed, and burned.

The major Bibles used in England that followed in Tynedale's path include the Coverdale and Matthew versions of the 1530s and, more significantly to this story, the Geneva Bible (1560), the Bishops' Bible (1568) -- both Reformation favorites -- and the Rheims New Testament (1582), a standard text in Roman Catholic churches. It was the Bishops' Bible's 1602 edition that was the Church of England's standard text at the time James commissioned a new version; Norton used Powerpoint to illustrate some telling differences between the two.

Frontispiece of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible.

The frontispiece of the 1602 edition of the Bishops' Bible is a busy piece of printing. To decode some of it: At top, the Tetragrammaton. Left side, representations of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Right, the Twelve Apostles. Beneath the text, a lamb, slaughtered and seemingly ready for the spit. The Four Evangelists are at the corners outside the text area.

Frontispiece of the first edition of the King James Bible, 1611.

The frontispiece of the first edition of the King James Bible retains some of the same imagery. The Tetragrammaton (cut off in this photo) is at top. The Apostles underneath, with the Agnus Dei. The Evangelists remain at the cardinal corners of the text box. What's new is Moses and Aaron flanking the text, and in the text itself is the conspicuous credit: "by His Majesty's special commandment," a controversial hint at giving James almost godly authority, a phraseology that would be abandoned in 1629.

The title pages of the 1602 Bishops' Bible and the first King James Bible.

A comparison of the two title pages reveals a few differences, like the promise of a new text based on translations of the original tongues, which isn't exactly the case. Hebrew and Aramaic, of course would be the original languages for the books of the Hebrew Bible on which the Old Testament is based; and Greek would have been the mother tongue from which to translate original New Testament books. As stated above, based on what several of the lecturers said yesterday, 83 percent of the KJV comes from Tynedale's Bible. So what are the differences?

Let me start with language. Four hundred years on, we reflect on the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras as the birth of modern English and the golden age of English prose and poetry. Shakespeare, Milton, and their remembered contemporaries are, to most, the fathers of our language. At their time however, things were different. The people of the English-speaking world c. 1600 would have laughed at the notion that their mother tongue could in any way comprise an art form. The term "English literature" would have been considered an oxymoron, Norton said, and the KJV revolutionized nothing on its advent in 1611; it would be decades later, years even after the death of its patron the king, when the KJV began to be accepted widely (the Geneva, for one, was an enduring favorite), and it wouldn't be until the 18th century that it became THE Bible of the English-speaking Christian world. This Bible, Norton added, holds a unique status. There were other Bibles, but the KJV from 1660 on was the Scriptural text that served as a book of both truth and language, and over the next century and a half, when people eventually caught up to it in the mid 18th century, it became the English-speaking Protestants' word of God. This must be appreciated for the feat that it is, considering that dialects were many and varied in England itself, never mind the diversity found in the Americas and elsewhere.

There were folio-size editions for the clergy's use in church, and there were quartos for sale to individuals and families for use at home, but that's largely just commerce. To be clear, the King James Bible was crafted specifically for being read aloud in church.

The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, 1-5:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

It is one of the most famous verses in English letters, theology notwithstanding.

Words, phrases, and understanding are the crux of translation, and when revising a text already in the same language, the decision to not change something is equally potent as the act of changing a word, phrase, or understanding.

William Tyndale's New Testament c. 1530, Gospel of John, Chapter 1, 1-5:

"That which was from the beginning declare we unto you, which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life. For the life appeared, and we have seen, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the father, and appeared unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye may have fellowship with us, and that our fellowship may be with the father, and his son Jesus Christ. And this write we unto you, that our joy may be full. And this is the tidings which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

The Bishops' Bible of 1568, Gospel of John, Chapter 1, 1-5:

"In the begynnyng was the worde, & the worde was with God: and that worde was God. The same was in the begynnyng with God. All thynges were made by it: and without it, was made nothyng that was made. In it was lyfe, and the lyfe was the lyght of men, And the lyght shyneth in darkenesse: and the darknesse comprehended it not."

What also distinguishes the KJV from previous Bibles is the absence of marginal notes. These brief doctrinal notes next to the Scriptural verses existed to offer context and clarity, but to King James, some of them were intolerable. The Geneva Bible is the Bible of the Reformation, of the Puritans, and the Pilgrims; it was the first Bible brought to America and was the standard text for Christian worship in America until the KJV came to dominate. In the Geneva Bible's John 1 there were notes opining opposition to monarchial rule. To James, as editor-in-chief (he was highly knowledgeable in matters of theology and church) the doctrinal notes generally were undesirable, but those introducing ideas of disobedience to kings especially had to go.

But philosophically, the justification of a new Bible for the Church of England -- James never did succeed at introducing a revised Scripture for his native Church of Scotland -- was stated in the colorful prose of the preface. (The American Bible Society published in 1997 a book containing this introductory message in three formats: 1) a facsimile of the original 1611 pages, 2) the original wording, but in an orthography to accommodate modern American readers, and 3) an entirely modern format, with all Greek and Latin quotations, and all archaic English words and idioms rendered in modern standard English. This book, titled The Translators to the Reader: The Original Preface of the King James Version of 1611 Revisited is available through Amazon and other vendors.) Excerpted: "Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good ... but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, that hath been our endeavour, that our mark. To that purpose there were many chosen that were greater in other men's eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise."

Dr. Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University, in Chicago. Dr. McKnight has given radio interviews across the country, has appeared on television and regularly speaks at local churches, conferences, colleges and seminaries in the United States and abroad. Dr. McKnight earned his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham.

McKnight complemented Norton's talk by sharing additional information on the KJV's place in England, explaining there were two main rival texts, the Catholic version of the Holy Bible and the Protestants' Geneva Bible. The latter was very popular, thanks to its quarto size, Roman font, and accessible notes. The Catholic Church's Bible, called the Rheims New Testament, was the first English language Catholic Bible. First published in 1582 in France, it is interesting how the Church did not complete and authorize its own version of the Old Testament until 1610. Both Testaments are based on Jerome's Vulgate, the Latin translation from the fourth century, making them inaccurate and scorned by non-Catholics. At stake was more than who had the best translations of the Hebrew and Greek source materials; the King James Bible was to satisfy both Anglican and Puritan alike, and carry on the Protestant tradition at a time when Roman Catholicism vied for both ecclesiastical supremacy and control of the state.

There were times where choice of specific words had significant implications: church versus congregation; priest versus minister; and baptize versus wash, to cite three examples. The accord of Greek original text with desired context made for the winning formula, and so in devising a New Testament in the best obtainable language based on the original Greek, James I was said to have freed five from prison: the Four Evangelists and Paul the Apostle. In the latter's case, Romans Chapter 5 was cited as an illustrative instance of bearing toward the Greek by replacing "sin" with "offense."

Dr. Euan Cameron

Euan Cameron attended Eton and Oxford Universities, where he graduated with a BA in History and received a D.Phil. He taught History at the University of Newcastle upon Tynein, became the first Henry Luce III Professor of Reformation Church History, at Union Theological Seminary in New York; and held a concurrent appointment in the Department of Religion in Columbia University. From 2004 to 2010, he also served as Academic Vice-President in the seminary.

Dr. Cameron added more context to the story, explaining, among other things, that the King James Version was the right Bible for the right time. Reformation's "heroic confrontational phase" was embodied by William Tynedale early in the previous century, but by the time James had commissioned his Bible, it was time for "a more measured quality" to the voice of the Church of England. It was time for Anglican ascendancy.

However the success of the KJV is not due to its establishment within the Church of England alone. It is because it is the embodiment of the Reform-minded Christian message that all the faithful can embrace.

Mr. Norman Stone, director and producer of KJB: The Book That Changed the World.

After the lectures, it was time for the film premiere and discussion with the director of KJB: The Book that Changed the World. Produced and directed by Norman Stone, this 90-minute film documents the creation and significance of the King James Bible. Created for the translation's 400th anniversary, it features acclaimed British actor John Rhys-Davies as chief storyteller and guide.

Stone was youngest television producer/director at the BBC. He wrote and produced the highly acclaimed A Different Drummer about the blind and deaf Cornish poet Jack Clemo in 1980. Four years later, his career was established with the international success of Shadowlands, a drama on the love and grief of C.S. Lewis.

The movie tells of the turbulent politics (e.g. the Fawkes plot) of the Jacobean era and the intrigues in both state and church that were behind the creation of this holy text that changed the world.

As always, any errors or omissions in the reporting here are mine, and not the speakers'.
 

‘Of stones and green men’

     
Only “birds of a feather flock together,” so don’t lump the Magpie Mason with the culture vultures, but there are two events in Manhattan I must bring to your attention.

On Sunday, May 23 at 3 p.m., the Museum of Biblical Art will host the first in a series of “cross-cultural conversations... investigating questions of religious identity and meaning through the prism of Jewish and Christian art.” Titled One Stone Upon Another: The Temple of Jerusalem in Jewish and Christian Art, the lecture is open to the public.

MOBIA says:

“Robin Jensen, Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian Art and Worship at Vanderbilt University; and Steven Fine, Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University and Director of the YU Center for Israel Studies, will look at early representations of the Temple of Jerusalem. Each a foremost expert on the ways that art was meaningful for the religious experience in antiquity, Fine and Jensen bring their cross-cultural conversation into the public domain, addressing profound questions of religious identity and meaning in late antiquity through the prisms of ancient Christian and Jewish art.

“The conversation will be guided by questions such as: How close were Christians and Jews in late antiquity? What were the borderlines that separated them, and in what ways did their shared focus upon the Bible distance and bring them closer to one another? What do ancient visual and literary sources – read together – tell us about how Jews viewed Christians; Christians viewed Jews; and each viewed Roman polytheism?”

Admission is free. To register for this event, call (212) 408-1500.

Admission to the museum also is free, and you’ll want to allow ample time to savor the exhibit titled Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain, which closes May 30.

Again, courtesy of MOBIA:

“This exhibition discusses the last two centuries of medieval Spanish history in the Crown of Aragon (the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Valencia, and the region of Catalonia) from the vantage point of religious art, and demonstrates the documented cooperative relationship that existed between Christians and Jews who worked either independently or together to create art both for the Church and the Jewish community. Religious art was not created solely by members of the faith community it was intended to serve, but its production in the multi-cultural society of late medieval Spain was more complicated. Jewish and Christian artists worked together in ateliers producing both retablos (large multi-paneled altarpieces) as well as Latin and Hebrew manuscripts. Jews and conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity) were painters and framers of retablos, while Christians illuminated the pages of Hebrew manuscripts.

“The exhibition tells not only the story of this fascinating moment of artistic collaboration, it also provides a glimpse into the lives of these communities which lived side by side. Images in some retablos reflect the hardships of Jewish life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: conversions, forced sermons, disputations, the Inquisition, and charges of host desecration and blood libel. Other extraordinary paintings project a messianic view of a future in which Jews would join with Christians in one faith.

“The exhibition is accompanied by the publication edited by Vivian B. Mann, with essays by Marcus B. Burke, Carmen Laccara Ducay, Thomas F. Glick and Vivian B. Mann, which provide a fascinating study of the production of altarpieces in late medieval Spain and the artistic overlap between the Jewish and Christian communities that this industry spawned. Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain is published by D Giles Limited in association with the Museum of Biblical Art and is available at the MOBIA online Bookstore.”

Click here to see a slideshow of images from this exhibition.



Also closing at the end of the month is the exhibition at Poet’s House titled The Green Man.

Every thinking Freemason ought to know about the Green Man. His significance in architecture and symbolism merits your consideration.

Poet’s House says:

This series of paintings by British-born poet and painter Basil King depicts the Green Man, the pre-Christian archetypal figure of creation and the earth, emerging in the guise of British historical figures, such as Guy Fawkes and Walter Raleigh.

To close on a humorous note, take a few minutes to enjoy this footage of actor Bill Murray reading poetry to the operative builders who constructed the new Poet’s House in Battery Park City:


     

‘Sacred Spaces at MOBIA, Part II’

     

Dr. Klaus Ottmann and artist Tobi Kahn at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City Thursday night. Ottmann lectured on ‘Faith, Spirituality and Sacred Spaces in Contemporary Art,’ the last of three lectures offered in connection with MOBIA’s exhibit of Kahn’s work ‘Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century’ which closes on Sunday.

‘Portrait of the Artist Studio
as Spiritual Space’

Thursday night, the Museum of Biblical Art hosted the final of three lectures addressing the topic of sacred spaces in conjunction with its exhibit of artist Tobi Kahn’s work titled “Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century.” Our teacher, Dr. Klaus Ottmann, brought the lecture series full circle; what began last month with a discussion of the evolution of sacred spaces from Temple-era Israel through the Renaissance and into modern times, concluded here with Ottmann defining the artist studio as spiritual space where philosophy, language, and religion are amalgamated in certain works of contemporary art.

Not the Magpie Mason’s field of expertise, which made the experience all the more fascinating. Furthermore, if my colleagues at the Rose Circle happen to read this, I hope they will jot down Dr. Ottmann’s name, and consider inviting him to speak at one of our conferences, where he can contribute much to the members’ stock of knowledge as he is a sound choice to discuss these matters.

Ottmann earned a Master of Arts degree in 1980 from Freie Universität in Berlin, and his Doctorate in Philosophy from the Division of Media and Communications at the European Graduate School in Switzerland in 2002. Today Ottmann serves as the Robert Lehman Curator for Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York and also teaches art history at the School of Visual Arts. A prolific author of books and catalogs, Ottmann also is editor-in-chief of Spring Publications, Inc., which publishes books on psychology, philosophy, religion, mythology, and art. One of its books is Ottmann’s translation (from German) of Gershom Scholem’s Alchemy and Kabbalah (2006).

He has curated more than 40 exhibitions including Life, Love, and Death: The Works of James Lee Byars at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg (2004), and Wolfgang Laib: A Retrospective, which traveled from Washington to five other museums around the world (2000-02). His recent curatorial projects include exhibits of Willem De Kooning and Chloe Piene; future shows of Rackstraw Downes and Jennifer Bartlett will open at Parrish Art Museum this year and next.

His curriculum vitae is extensive, and can be read here.

Ottman spoke too briefly yet managed to cover a variety of artists, the philosophers who inspired them, and the spiritual images created thereby. In only about 40 minutes, Ottman, taught us about more than half a dozen artists of the 20th century, and even one painter from 15th century Russia.


Ottmann began his talk quoting Immanuel Kant’s three fundamental philosophical questions:

What can I know?

What ought I to do?

What may I hope for?

His point was to explain that man seeks an ethical grounding in life. There are those who rely on meditation and prayer; others take to political activism; some look for fulfillment in material possessions. Their quest is for the inexpressible, what Ludwig Wittgenstein described as “running against the boundaries of language.” Or, as F.W.J. Schelling put it (Ottmann again quoting): “Each of us is compelled by nature to seek an Absolute.” (Ottmann also is the translator of Schelling’s soon-to-be published Philosophy and Religion.) This can lead to a harmonious, but deep, connection between religion and art. To wit: Chartres Cathedral, an almost limitless creation of material wonder (architecture, statuary, stained glass, etc.) that has become a destination for spiritual seekers of all kinds.

With these firm philosophical and artistic footings, Dr. Ottmann lead us forward into the fine arts, screening for us a few minutes of the film Andrey Rublyov (1966) by Andrei Tarkovsky, which tells the story of Rublyov’s torment over being hired to paint The Last Judgment inside a church, yet he cannot paint it, not wanting to “terrify people.” This 15th century painter of Orthodox icons is renowned for his Holy Trinity, which Ottmann credits as an example of art’s ability to link the present world to another world. “There exists an icon of the Holy Trinity, and therefore God exists as well.”

Fast-forwarding to 1950, Ottmann gave us Mark Rothko’s No. 10, an oil on canvas of his floating rectangles.

Left: Rublyov’s Holy Trinity (c.1410).

Right: Rothko’s No. 10 (1950).

Rothko’s favorite philosopher was Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish thinker who believed Christianity was better left to the individual believer who, if left free to worship, would seek the community of a congregation. (Such thinking put him at odds with the Danish National Church, the official state church.) His preference for the individual also is seen in writings about the patriarch Abraham. “Kierkegaard has that passion for the ‘I.’ For that ‘I’ experience, like Abraham in his Fear and Trembling,” said Ottmann, quoting Rothko. “It is the ‘I’ that I myself experience every day.”

No. 10 shows a few horizontal bars, but The Rothko Chapel in Houston is a modern work of specifically religious art. Perhaps most notably, this sacred space was not built to be a synagogue or church, but was commissioned by private individuals. “The Chapel has two vocations: contemplation and action. It is a place alive with religious ceremonies of all faiths, and where the experience and understanding of all traditions are encouraged and made available. Action takes the form of supporting human rights, and thus the Chapel has become a rallying place for all people concerned with peace, freedom, and social justice throughout the world.” Read more here.

Our next stop was New Mexico to visit the Dwan Light Sanctuary on the campus of the United World College. Curator Virginia Dwan, architect Laban Wingert, and artist Charles Ross collaborated to create an exceptionally unique sacred space. As one website puts it, the Sanctuary is:

“a space shaped by the Earth’s alignment to the sun, moon, and stars. Designed around the number twelve, the Sanctuary is illuminated by six prisms in each of two apses, and three prisms in each of four skylights. The prisms form broad ribbons of pure solar color that move in concert with the rotation of the Earth. Lunar spectrums can be seen on nights when the moon is full. A third apse, facing north, houses a square window. A line parallel to Earth’s axis extends from the center of the floor through the center of this window, and points directly to the North Star.”

Moving to France, we examined Yves Klein’s Blue Monochromes, which I think Dr. Ottmann said were six in number, and had been created for a chapel that in the end was not built. As MoMA’s website says:

“Monochrome abstraction—the use of one color over an entire canvas—has been a strategy adopted by many painters wishing to challenge expectations of what an image can and should represent. Klein likened monochrome painting to an ‘open window to freedom.’ He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, it is called International Klein Blue. Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness of his own particular utopian vision of the world.”

Then it was time for more film. Klein’s Anthropometries of the Blue Period (1962) combines music, blue paint, and nudes to create what Ottmann called “a theater of the flesh.” Referring to Klein several times as a Christian and Rosicrucian, our lecturer described the action in the film as an expression of the incarnation of The Word, and the resurrection of the body. The Word made flesh. I cannot find the same piece of film on the web, but this alternative gives you the idea. This clip is shorter than what we saw during the lecture, and what is most obviously different is the absence of the original music. Klein had his female models, the “human brushes,” do their work while a chamber orchestra with two vocalists performs a droning piece of music which sounded almost like a liturgical chanting, but with strings and woodwinds undertaking the work of a choir of baritones. Frankly, it gave the scene a nightmarish quality. (Also, the longer film we saw during the lecture offered a few quick glimpses at a jewel around Klein’s neck. Its red ribbon was plainly visible against his white tuxedo shirt, but the jewel itself seemed to escape the camera; to me it appeared to have had the shape of what we American Freemasons call a Most Wise Master’s jewel.)

Klein and Claude Parent collaborated on “Air Architecture” and their “Air Conditioned City” (1961). Rosicrucian symbolism abounds, as the elements Air and Fire again dominate Klein’s statement, his call for a new Eden.

Leaving Europe for India, our group looked at Wolfgang Laib and his Brahmanda (1972). Read Dr. Ottmann’s explanation here from last November.

For his Brahmanda, said Ottmann, Laib had discovered a large black rock, about three feet long, in India. He brought the rock home and carved it into a perfect oval shape called a “brahmanda.”  A Sanskrit word, “brahmanda” is defined as “cosmic spirit” + egg. “The embodiment of Brahma, particularly the solar system, physical, psychological, and spiritual; the ancient Hindus called Brahma “the cosmic atom. The idea is that this cosmic atom is ‘Brahma’s Egg,’ from which the universe shall spring into manifested being.”

Laib also is known for his “Fire Rituals.” Ottmann said Laib’s exhibition in Turin consisted of Vedic fire rituals, which included priests’ religious chants and the lighting of 33 fire altars on which ritual elements of fruits and vegetables, and other organic materials were burned. A very rare happening outside of India. These are celebrations of peace, prosperity, health, love, and other ethics and energies.

The Faith by Enrique Celaya, oil and wax on canvas, 2007.

Enrique Martinez Celaya, (born 1964) a Cuban-American artist, wants, said Ottmann, for “artists to be prophets again.” Marrying art, literature, philosophy, and science, this artist calls for art to show “ethical responsibility” with the artist/prophet, unlike the mystic who aims to leave this world for the next, returning to the world to spread his message.

The Magpie Mason could not help but smile when Dr. Ottmann projected the next painting onto the screen. Celaya’s Two Worlds (2007) unmistakably recalls the countless myths, legends, and religious stories that allegorically employ a river as, what Piers Vaughan might term, “a barrier between two states of consciousness.”

Two Worlds by Enrique Celaya, oil and wax on canvas, 2007.

The traveler, dressed unusually, crosses the water, heading toward Light, where life begins to bloom. Only one step away from completing his crossing, he appears to struggle to maintain his balance. It is “a spiritual and transcendent reminder of the ethical responsibility of the artist,” Ottmann explained which, for me, is an inspiring contrast to the hateful filth (e.g., Serrano, Ofili) that seems to garner the art world’s awards and grant monies.

Concluding his lecture, Dr. Ottmann urged us to consider the artist’s studio as spiritual space. Artists’ spaces are sometimes preserved, he said, not only for their historical significance, but for the idea of preserving the spirit of the artist. “There is so much concentration…. There is an aura.”

Magpie readers, please always remember that subjects such as this are complicated, consequently any errors above are attributable to me, and not to Dr. Ottmann.
     

‘Sacred Spaces’ at MOBIA, Part I

As mentioned last week, yesterday evening saw the first of the three-part lecture series at the Museum of Biblical Art concerning what it calls Sacred Spaces. Our speaker Thursday was Dr. Ena G. Heller, Executive Director of MOBIA, and curator of the related exhibition of artist Tobi Kahn’s work titled “Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century.”

Heller’s lecture was titled “Function, Symbol, Access: Sacred Spaces Throughout History,” which took us on a visual tour through time and space, from ancient days to medieval times to the Renaissance, and up to today, visiting synagogues, cathedrals, monastic churches, private chapels, and a meditation space designed by Kahn. “I live in a very predictable universe,” she joked, “so if I’m going to lecture on something, it’ll be the Bible.” And she indeed began with that Volume of Sacred Law, even beginning with its beginning.

It is in Genesis where we are introduced to the idea of a place where the Divine is manifest, she explained, screening a photo of one of Bro. Marc Chagall’s paintings of the passage in Chapter 28, when Jacob dreams his vision of the ladder, and upon awakening constructs our first sacred space. Excerpted:

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel....

Fast-forwarding to 13th century Europe, Heller brought us to Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, a relatively small Gothic structure built quite quickly in Paris during the late 1240s, and to the Old-New Synagogue in Prague, another Gothic-style house of God, completed in 1270. She cited both as early examples of how architecture can define the uses of space for prayer, study, and ritual. Juxtaposing the floor plans of both, she pointed out their similarities. Explaining how that evolved from pagan practices of using temples for the public sacrificial rites conducted by an elite few, Heller acknowledged how Temple-era Judaism had a similar priesthood, but that after the destruction of the last Temple of Jerusalem, the synagogue became the center of the Jewish faith, where it served as a place of assembly. With the faithful gathering to read and study Torah, Judaism became the first communal religion, she added, which brought an element of democracy to religious life. It was Philo of Alexandria who first dubbed the synagogue a sacred space, thanks to the presence of Torah, “the supreme source of holiness.”

Reinforcing her point on how architecture defines the sacred space, Heller explained that synagogues do not follow a uniform architectural plan, but are constructed to highlight the location of the Torah. “There is a general and generous space with benches for the community, and then the Torah shrine.” The Talmud’s metaphoric injunction to build a fence around the Torah would be expressed literally in some cases, such as the Old Synagogue in Krakow, the 16th century Renaissance structure with famous wrought ironwork inside and out. The significance of the Torah location gave rise to the apse, the architectural flourish designed to draw attention to the presence of deity, which Christianity would adopt and adapt for the place of its altar.

Evolution led to the advent of the chancel screen, a “highly charged symbol” that makes for two distinct spaces, “separating the sacred from the profane.” To illustrate this, Heller guided our tour to Florence for examinations of two monastic churches, one Dominican, the other Franciscan, both dating to the 13th century.

Dr. Ena G. Heller, Executive Director of the Museum of Biblical Art, explains some of the functional similarities in the architecture of synagogues and churches during her lecture Thursday night. Behind her is one of the artworks in MOBIA’s “Scripture, Image, Life: Orthodox Christianity” exhibit, which will close January 24.

The Dominican Order’s Santa Maria Novella and the Franciscans’ Basilica of Santa Croce both feature more than chancel screens; they boast very solid, bridge-like barriers that perform the function in monastic churches of ensuring the monks can worship separately from everyone else. (NB: Galileo, Machiavelli, and Michaelangelo are entombed inside Santa Croce.) In fact, this segregation is what differentiates monastic church from cathedral, the latter being intended for everyone’s use.

Ultimately the concept of sacred space divided led to what Heller suggested was an abuse, as families possessing more wealth than virtue came to acquire their own chapels on the altar side of the chancel, changing worship space from being open to everybody to being owned by the few, and sometimes for purposes other than religious. Cosimo Medici, Florence’s supremely powerful “Father of the Homeland,” would employ his family’s chapels as reception rooms for visiting dignitaries, and to host high level business meetings. He even had his likeness painted into a fresco depicting the Three Wise Men.

Turning away from the self-serving, and returning us full circle, Heller concluded her lecture (45 minutes, but too brief!) with a visit to a creation of artist Tobi Kahn, whose work comprises the “Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century” exhibit in the adjoining room. Kahn is celebrated in part for his Meditation Room, installed in 2001 on the fourth floor of the HealthCare Chaplaincy on the other side of Manhattan at East 62nd Street.

Here, Kahn’s love of abstract designs is matched with his gift for material functionality, and what is most notable – to the Magpie Mason at least – is his placement of seating. Visitors here do not sit in unison facing one direction, as in a house of worship, but sit facing one another – as in, for example, a Craft lodge. Remember, we used to have Masonic Temples, as in places for conTEMPLation.

The Magpie Mason was not allowed to photogragh inside Kahn’s exhibition at MOBIA. The photos below are courtesy of the museum. The exhibit will close on January 24.

Titled “Shalom Bat” (2008) these four chairs are painted with Kahn’s signature abstract geometric expressions.

“Ykarh II” (2008) is a matched “Havdalah” candlestick holder and spice box. Both are acrylic on wood. Kahn tells art collectors who purchase his work that they should use his creations for their intended functions.

“Mezuzot” (2008) Also acrylic on wood.

A mezuzah is a Jewish household item, mounted on doorposts. Inside is a small scroll containing the words central to Jewish life: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord Our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) I suppose in this way, the mezuzah makes every room a sacred space.

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A note from Dr. Heller:

In 2010 the Museum of Biblical Art will celebrate its fifth anniversary with many exciting exhibitions, educational programs, and special events planned. MOBIA offers one-of-a-kind programs that encourage interfaith dialogue and explore the many ways in which art and religion intersect.

To make the next five years and beyond even more successful, MOBIA depends on the support of its benefactors, friends, and members. Your donation will ensure the museum will continue to provide year-round cultural services, such as free summer art making workshops for neighborhood children and seniors, guided docent tours, and the unique concert series “Hearing the Sacred.”

You may send a check or money order made out to Museum of Biblical Art, or call us directly at (212) 408-1586 to learn more. You may also donate online with a credit card here.

Your gift makes a difference. Thank you for your support.

Ena Heller, Ph.D.
Executive Director