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Historical and Contemporary Encounters

This exhibition has been curated by the students on the MA Curating the Art Museum programme at The Courtauld Institute of Art. The programme, now in its third year, is led by Martin Caiger-Smith and is aimed at art curators of the future. The exhibition project is the culmination of the practical side of this twelve-month course. The eleven students, from the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Canada and the United States, were asked to mount a public exhibition in The Courtauld Gallery, from initial concept to its realisation in the gallery space.

What makes religious imagery powerful and enduring? How do historical and contemporary artworks engage the viewer in questions of belief?

This exhibition explores these questions by confronting historical Christian art with contemporary art that continues to address the same visual tradition. The works were selected from two very different collections. Those from The Courtauld Gallery were originally created as devotional objects. They were understood to be imbued with sacred power and were designed to inspire empathy with the suffering and compassion of the Virgin Mary and Christ. Works from the Arts Council Collection demonstrate how a variety of contemporary artists continue to evoke and rework religious imagery. Although their works may not be religious in intent, they can command a similarly strong emotional response to enduring themes of belief, doubt, suffering and compassion. Displayed together the works are surprisingly resonant in form and meaning, inviting us to consider continuity and change in the use of religious imagery throughout history.

Historical and Contemporary Encounters

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Do we have to see, or touch, to believe? In this room faith and doubt pervade both the stories and the subsequent representation of two saints. Polidoro da Caravaggio’s painting depicts Saint Thomas, who needed to touch Christ’s wounds to believe in his miraculous resurrection. Saint Christopher had his feast day removed from the Catholic Church’s calendar in 1969 due to lack of proof of his existence. Siobhán Hapaska’s sculpture rehabilitates the popular figure, widely revered as the patron saint of travellers.

Both the painting and sculpture are life-size, naturalistic and even disturbingly real. Caravaggio and his contemporaries represented biblical stories in a realistic manner to heighten their immediacy for the beholder. Here, the uncanny presence of Hapaska’s sculpture engages us in a similar way. Alongside, as if from a parallel reality, a blood-red ‘seepage’ travels down the wall. Alarming, beautiful, and uncertain in meaning, it makes us question what we see, and what we can believe, within and beyond the gallery space.

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FAITH AND DOUBT

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Polidoro da Caravaggio (1492-1543)The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

c. 1531-35Oil on panel203 x 125.7 cm© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

This altarpiece was commissioned by the Farone, an important family in the Sicilian city of Messina. Saint Thomas reaches out to touch the wound inflicted during the Crucifixion, doubtful that Christ is alive and present before him. He extends his other hand to the viewer, including us in the life-size scene. The illusionistic quality of the painting aims to blur the line between reality and representation, to affirm the presence of Christ’s resurrected body and help strengthen the beholder’s faith.

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Saint Christopher’s worn-down legs present us with dual symbols of faith and doubt. They indicate his popular veneration as the long-serving patron saint of travellers, but also the Catholic Church’s lack of belief in his existence. Hapaska describes how her sculptures range from hyper-real fetishistic objects to abstracted minimalist forms; yet all have flawless surface finishes so that they appear to have been ‘made by a godly power’. This life-size and disturbingly life-like sculpture aims to appeal to our sense of hope and enduring beauty, encouraging us to question what it means to be alive.

Siobhán Hapaska (b. 1963) Saint Christopher

1995Wax, human hair, cotton and oil paint90 x 50 x 70 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist Gift of Charles Saatchi 1999

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Markéta Luskačová (b. 1944) The Cape Procession, Sumiac

1969Silver print20 x 28.5 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

From the late 1960s, the Czech photographer Markéta Luskačová produced the series Pilgrims in rural Slovakia. This photograph depicts the declining religious traditions of the Slovakian mountain villagers, which were prohibited under the Communist regime. The villagers walk in procession to mark the day of Jesus’ Crucifixion, carrying a life-size image of the body of Christ to visually recreate a sense of this historic event.

Luskačová has discussed the Prague Spring of 1968, before the Soviet invasion, as a brief period of political liberalisation when the villagers were able to practise their faith openly. This series is a ‘visual testimony of the integrity of pilgrims’, a poignant document of their faith and a window into the sacred customs that they practiced.

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Adam Chodzko’s work explores ideas of existence, mythology and belief systems. Here, the glass droplets, which he calls Secretors, are positioned high on the wall at the periphery of the viewer’s normal line of vision. Their titles claim that the blood-red liquid travels down the walls at impossible speeds, yet we perceive them as still. The works are not necessarily religious, but allude to what the artist refers to as a ‘seepage from other realities’. Sited here, Chodzko sees the Secretors as suggestive of a giant hidden body beyond the construct of the gallery, an ‘intersection between imagination and reality’.

Adam Chodzko (b. 1965)2101 Km/Hr (Secretor)36.5 x 12.3 x 5.3 cm9468 Km/Hr (Secretor)29.5 x 10.5 x 5.7 cm9605 Km/Hr (Secretor)34 x 12 x 3 cm

1993Manifestation juice (food dye and glycerine), lead, plastic, acrylic and acetateArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist Gift of Charles Saatchi 1999

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The painting and ivory diptych in this room were designed to deepen faith through private study and contemplation. Their scale and intricacy encouraged the beholder to meditate upon Christ’s suffering.

How can we relate to these works of art today? The atmosphere of this small room encourages us to engage more intimately with these works, and in turn to consider their original function as objects of devotion. Like Adam Chodzko’s Secretors, these tangible objects are indicators of a world beyond our own.

DEVOTION

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Christ’s penetrating gaze calls for engagement and empathy from the viewer. The detailed rendition of Christ’s blood and tears and the intimate scale of the work invite an intense response, or an act of private devotion.

Bouts was a successful Netherlandish painter with an extensive workshop. Many of his followers replicated this popular type of devotional imagery. Paintings of this particular subject were often joined with depictions of the Mater Dolorosa, which showed the extreme suffering of the bereaved Virgin Mary, to form a diptych.

Follower of Dieric Bouts the Elder (c. 1415-1475) Christ Crowned with Thorns

c. 1475Oil on panel32.3 x 23.8 cm © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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This type of delicate ivory was very popular in the fourteenth century and workshops produced numerous copies of the same theme. As an object for personal devotion, it would have originally been held in the palm of the hand like a prayer book, to enable deep contemplation. When the diptych is partially closed, the Virgin in the left-hand panel seems to look at the pained figure of Christ crucified on the panel opposite, as if she foresees his fate.

France, attributed to the Atelier aux Visages CaractérisésIvory diptych with Standing Virgin and Child and The Crucifixion

Mid- or late-14th centuryIvory with later ebony backing and metal hinges18.1 x 22.2 cm © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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How has the image of the Mother and Child been used to address themes of suffering and compassion?

As a subject that has dominated Christian art for over 1500 years, the Madonna and infant Christ stands as an archetype for every mother and child. Mary is at once the sacred mother of God and a human, grief-stricken parent who loses her son. The fundamental humanity of their bond explains the resilience of this motif through time and its continued interest in a more secular contemporary society.

Here, contemporary artists draw on the Christian tradition of Madonna imagery expressed in historical works. They recast and reinterpret traditional representations of the Mother and Child, to challenge and reassess the enduring power of this familiar icon.

SUFFERING ANDCOMPASSION

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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804)Lamentation over the Dead Christ

18th centuryPen and ink, watercolour and black chalk on paper46 x 35.7 cm© The Samuel Courtauld Trust,The Courtauld Gallery, London

The Lamentation depicts a harrowing moment of grief for the Virgin as she holds her son’s body after the Crucifixion. A dark storm casts the scene in shadow, except for the figures of Mary and the dead Christ who glow at the centre of the crowded composition. This drawing lays stress on Mary’s humanity, her suffering resonating with viewers whatever their faith. The empathy and pity this image evokes is expressed in the Italian name for the Lamentation scene, the Pietà.

This work comes from a series of 313 drawings by Tiepolo that make up the largest-known New Testament cycle produced by a single artist. Tiepolo is best known for his charming images of daily life in Venice however these drawings, never intended for public display, indicate his personal relationship with the life of Christ.

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Isolated from the expressive pose of a body, the gesture of the hand is humbled and becomes ambiguous. Is it a hand of the living or of the dead? The translucent flowers are entwined in the hand, their trailing stems falling into the void beneath. White flowers are typically associated with the Virgin Mary, being symbolic of innocence and purity. For the artist, the sculpture recalls the ‘frowning Pietà as it contemplates its own creation’. The hand evokes the moment when Mary cradles the lifeless Christ at the foot of the Cross, its gesture reading as both a reluctant offering and a refusal to let go.

Phil Brown (b. 1958)Untitled (hand)

1994Silicone and plaster55 x 32 x 22 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist Gift of Charles Saatchi 1999

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This fourteenth-century painting is typical of the iconic image of the Madonna. The small altarpiece brings together scenes from the beginning and end of Christ’s life, combining depictions of both suffering and compassion. The lower image shows the Virgin as the Madonna of Humility. In contrast with earlier depictions where she is often shown on an elaborate throne, this new type of representation shows her seated on the ground, bringing her closer to the ordinary worshipper. The gold leaf in the background of this altarpiece was intended to glorify the subject and evoke the divine light of heaven.

Style of Jacopo di Cione (1320-30-c. 1398)Virgin and Child with Four Saints, with Christ Crucified

14th centuryTempera on panel, integral frame with arched top101.3 x 54.7 cm © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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By combining delicately painted bodies with gold, Fairnington clearly alludes to gilded religious paintings. The exposed breast recalls the composition of Dieric Bouts’ Virgin and Child in the National Gallery, here isolated as the most intimate point of contact between mother and child.

The artist describes how gold leaf is ‘lighter than air and thinner than skin’. Rather than representing divine light, here the gold operates as a censoring device. Fairnington describes it as ‘swamping’ parts of the image it would have once illuminated. The artist’s non-traditional technique of applying the gold leaf leaves it vulnerable to tarnish and flaking, throwing into question the supposedly enduring role of the mother and child icon.

Mark Fairnington (b. 1957)The Greek Madonna

1993Oil and gold leaf on panel 60 x 44 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist Gift of Charles Saatchi 1999

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Mary sits nursing her son in the guise of the Madonna lactans, ‘Our Lady of the Milk’, a popular pose of the medieval and Renaissance period. The depiction of the Virgin breastfeeding conveys a strong physical and emotional bond, foregrounding the humanity of the Virgin and Christ. Saint Jerome’s devotional pose, gazing at Christ, invites the viewer to look on and pay homage to the compassionate Madonna nurturing her son.

Attributed to Giampietrino (active c. 1510-1540)The Virgin and Child with Saint Jerome

c. 1510-1530Oil on panel81.8 x 68.5 cm© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

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Grayson Perry (b. 1960) Spirit Jar

1994Glazed earthenware45.7 x 20.3 x 20.3 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

Grayson Perry uses traditional art forms and recasts them in a modern idiom to comment on and satirise contemporary society. Here, the artist co-opts the figure of the Madonna, portraying her in two contrasting guises. On one side she is a doting parent while on the other a more sinister representation of the mother-child relationship is revealed.

The title of this work, Spirit Jar, is a response to one of the artist’s bugbears: the misuse of the term ‘spiritual’. He cites the commonly used phrase ‘I’m not really religious, but I do have a spiritual side’ as an example of ‘wooly mysticism in these Da Vinci Code days’.

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Workshop of Jan Gossaert (1478-1532)Virgin and Child (Anna von Bergen and her son)

c. 1525Oil on panel43.5 x 33 cm© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Is this a secular portrait of the wife of Adolph of Burgundy with her son, as Karel van Mander suggests in his Schilderboeck (1604)? Or is it perhaps the sacred Madonna and Child? The composition suggests that this could be both a religious devotional image and a portrait drawn from life. The painted background creates an illusionistic space around the sitter and adds to the work’s ambiguity.

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Markéta Luskačová (b. 1944) People sitting outside church during mass

1965Silver print20 x 28.5 cmArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © the artist

During the 1960s, Luskačová was fascinated by the life of Slovakian mountain villagers and wanted to document their ancient religious customs. She describes how the children in the picture were likely not to be allowed any higher education; because of their religion they were labeled as undesirable and backward by the Communist regime.

This image is from Luskačová’s documentary series Pilgrims and was taken outside a rural church in Slovakia on Saint John’s Day. The veiled woman tenderly holding her sleeping son recalls the archetypal pose of the Madonna and Child. This apparition of the sacred in the everyday prompts us to question the notion that what the camera captures is reality.

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BLOOD TEARS FAITH DOUBT

Events

Conversations on Curating

Tuesdays 1.15–1.30pm, in the exhibition Free with gallery entrance

The Conversations on Curating talks are delivered by the curators of this exhibition - students on the MA Curating the Art Museum programme at The Courtauld Institute of Art. A pair of students conducts each talk, taking visitors through the exhibition, exploring the themes and content of the show and giving an insight into the curatorial process.

Spotlight Talks

Thursdays 1.15–1.30pm, in the exhibitionFree with gallery entrance

These talks focus on one or two works, exploring their history and their context within the exhibition.

Collaborative Performance by Laban Contemporary Dance and Camberwell College of Arts

Sunday 4th July 5.15pm, The Courtauld Institute of Art foyerFree

As part of T-Mobile’s Big Dance Weekend, students from Laban Contemporary Dance and Camberwell College of Arts will perform in response to the exhibition, drawing on the themes of the body, suffering, and devotion. The performance will take place in the foyer of The Courtauld Institute of Art, opposite The Courtauld Gallery entrance.

Extended Tour

Wednesday 14th July 5.15pm, in the exhibitionFree with gallery entrance

Two of the student curators lead a 45-minute tour of the exhibition, followed by refreshments in The Courtauld Institute of Art foyer.

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BLOOD TEARS FAITH DOUBT has been curated by:

Ariane Belisle | Elizabeth Buhe | Alexandra Burnett | Juliet Chippindale | Louisa Elderton | James Ford | Aurica Garcia Schaible | Hannah L. Fuller | Rebecca Newell | Mareike Spendel | Rafaela Van der Heyden

The MA Programme Curating the Art Museum 2009/10 is generously supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation

For further information about the programme, please visit: www.courtauld.ac.uk/degreeprogrammes/postgraduate/ma-curating

Acknowledgments

The MA Curating the Art Museum students would like to thank the following people and organisations for their help and assistance in making this exhibition possible:

The artistsThe Arts Council CollectionThe Courtauld Gallery Robert Graham of Heath Lambert Ltd Sarum PrintThe White Wall CompanyDisplay WaysArterium LtdGraphic Designers: Edouard Pecher and Matthieu Regout

General Information

Exhibition Hours17th June–18th July 2010Open Daily 10am–6pm (last admission 17.30)Free admission to exhibition with gallery ticket

The Courtauld GallerySomerset HouseStrand London WC2R 0RN+44 (0)20 7848 2526macurating@courtauld.ac.ukwww.courtauld.ac.uk/macuratingexhibition