Pushing beyond the “Christian imagination” genre, Mr. Young recommends Dan Siedell’s God in the Gallery, a book richly informed by Catholic and Orthodox theology. As I reread Siedell’s book, I’m dismayed that its lessons – which I attempted to elucidate here – continue to be ignored. It’s not, of course, that understanding the world of contemporary art means endorsing it. But even the most basic effort at understanding will quickly discern that complaints about contemporary art being absurd have long been sounded, quite convincingly, from within the world of contemporary art itself – making Christian “pronouncements” on that score redundant. Did I mention this makes Christian pronouncements redundant? At the very least we should follow the rule that every paragraph of complaint about contemporary art should be backed up with an hour of walking the galleries. But you knew that.
Consider this example of intelligent engagement from the students in my Contemporary Art class at Wheaton College. After a lecture on Conceptual Art, the next day half of my class had disappeared. Replacing them on their desks were written descriptions of each individual student (e.g. “brown hair, 5’5”, inquisitive eyes”). As I read these descriptions and tried to fathom what was happening, the students waited outside, and then dutifully filed back into class. Their point? Words and concepts are insufficient. Physical presence matters – both in class and art. After making the effort to grasp Conceptual Art on its own terms, these students playfully responded with a performance piece of Conceptual Art themselves, one that upended James Franco and reasserted George Steiner’s post-postmodern observation that in the realm of culture, real presence counts.
November 22nd, 2011 | 12:16 pm
Awesome! Those are some clever students!
November 22nd, 2011 | 12:53 pm
[...] he returns to the same theme, applying it to contemporary art: But even the most basic effort at understanding [...]
November 22nd, 2011 | 1:39 pm
[...] It’s not just our studio art students who know how to get a little creative, but also our art history students. Dr. Milliner, our professor of Art History recounts a comical, yet witty and poignant ‘joke’ on him during a recent class. He has recounted and integrated this apt and appropriate jest into a recent post of his which you can read here. [...]
November 22nd, 2011 | 2:29 pm
That’s fantastic. Good work, students.
November 22nd, 2011 | 10:38 pm
I see your point, and it’s hard to argue against a call for people to be informed. But at the same time, this post seems to be an overstatement.
For starters, the opening sentence doesn’t ring right with me, because it seems to equate “secular” with “contemporary art.” Even though most of what we would call “contemporary art” does come from a secularist mindset, the two are not the same thing. To put this in reverse perspective, consider this statemen: “Secularists shouldn’t complain about Christians misunderstanding them while they themselves continue to misunderstand the Contemporary Christian Music industry.”
Secondly, how many people anywhere, Christian or otherwise, would actually be able to name five contemporary artists? The truth is that the artists who are creating the sort of art that normal people pay attention to are working in the basements of Disney, Pixar, Blizzard Entertainment, and whoever it is that produces those zany Super Bowl ads.
I’m sure that when Christian college professors talk about “redeeming art,” they are thinking about the elitist, insular sort of art that you will often find in galleries but rarely in anyone’s homes. But when folks like me talk about redemption, we’re thinking of what is popular. And if you asked us to name more than five major film makers, movie stars, hip hop musicians, or vampire novelists, you’d get a very different answer.
The “high art” stuff is an easy target, because it really is absurd. But the true challenge is to engage with quality art and respond with something better.
November 28th, 2011 | 1:06 pm
“Physical presence matters – both in class and art.”
And in theology? So you’ve taught your students Christian Smith’s Rule 18 (http://www.amazon.com/Evangelical-Committed-Ninety-Five-Difficult-ebook/dp/B00579Y51Y/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_8), an “anomaly” not easily accounted for within Protestant culture: we are not mere “minds” apart from our bodies. Better be careful Prof. Milliner: you’re gonna turn those Evangelicals Catholic!…
November 28th, 2011 | 4:34 pm
We’re Protestants, not Manichaeans!
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