NAKED BEFORE GOD
This exhibition is an exploration of two
linked themes. The first of these themes is the way in which the religious impulse is
linked to sexuality. Many primitive religious ceremonies required devotees to be in a
state of nudity. This was the case when, in the time of the Roman Empire, the Mithraic
adept went down naked into a pit, to be bathed in the blood of a slaughtered bull.
Even when the devotee is not completely nude,
what he or she chooses to wear sometimes exaggerates sexual function rather than
concealing it. The Malaysian/Indonesian photographer Tara Sosrowardyo's likenesses of
tribesmen from Borneo in ceremonial costume are a case in point. His subjects wear huge
penis-sheaths designed to emphasise masculinity as an aspect of of religious as well as of
simple tribal identity. Sosrowardyo's richly coloured images represent his subjects with
deliberate formality, reminiscent of Christian images of warrior saints.The Jamaican
feminist artist Jivanii RedMark parodies this idea, showing voluptuous goddess-likeyoung
women - in fact self-portraits - equipped with penis-sheaths of the same sort.
Despite Christian reservations about the naked
body as an emblem of lust and a source of sexual temptation, Christian iconography,
certainly from the time of the Renaissance onwards, is also full of nude or near nude
figures. Sometimes these figures are those of the damned, writhing as they are punished
for their sins. More often, they are those of martyrs - St Sebastian shot full of arrows,
St Lawrence roasting on his gridiron - who are suffering for their faith. The naked figure
we meet most often is that of Christ himself. Christ on the Cross, Christ being scourged
by his executioners, Christ stripped of his garments before the Crucifixion, Christ being
baptised in the river Jordan, Christ resurrected, Christ striding through Limbo: all of
these episodes from the Gospel story offered artists the opportunity to represent a nudeor
all-but-nude adult male.
In a remarkable book, 'The Secuality of
Christ', the American art historian Leo Steinberg has pointed out how often
representations of the Saviour make play with deliberate sexual references. In many
Renaissance images of the Cruxifixion seem to show Christ with an erection underneath his
loincloth.
These traditions may to some extent have gone
underground, but they have not gone away. The second theme of the show is the way in which
contemporary art is reverting to lonng-established archetypes - religious archetypes in
particular. 'Naked Before God' offers a large number of examples. The Czech photographer
Ivan Pinkava, for instance, offers an image which is a close paraphrase of Leonardo da
Vinci's painting of St John the Baptist in the Louvre. The Irsaeli Michal Chelbin echoes,
slightly less directly, Michelangelo's 'Pieta' in St Peter's, Rome. Moving into Ancient
Egyptian, rather than Christian, mythology, the German-born Nils Burwitz, now resident in
Majorca, offers a version of the sky-goddess Nut, arched protectively over the earth.
An important feature of the show is the way in
which it demonstrates the universal nature of
this semi-secret symbolic language. The Museum
of New Art in Parnu has always prided itself on its ability to bring new art and new
artists to Estonia. For this tenth exhibition in the series 'Man and Woman' we have been
able to cast the niet wider than ever. There are artists here from Estonia itself, from
Finland, Sweden and Denmark, from Germany, from France, from Russia, from the Czech
Republic, from the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Jamaica, Israel and
India. In many cases they represent the absolute cutting-edge of the new generation of
contemporary art in their respective countries. There are also a number of artists, such
as Michael Kvium from Denmark and Jean Rustin from France, who enjoy major international
reputations and are long-standing friends of the Museum. We thank them all for their
co-operation, and in many cases for presenting their work to the permanent collection, as
a resource for visitors who may come to Parnu long after the exhibition itself is over.
Edward Lucie-Smith |