Category Archives: art

Gilbert and George

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After spending some excellent time with a member of the Moot community yesterday morning I took some time out to have a wander around the Gilbert and George exhibition at the Tate Modern. I did this with a purpose of putting myself in a different space and setting to hear from God.

The exhibition is outstanding and it is incredibly hard to visit this and not be affected, or emotionally jolted, in some way. I went particularly looking to be challenged in seeing God in this part of his creation and was quite surprised by how this happened. The art work is amazing. The sheer size and boldness of Gilbert and George’s work is impossible to explain and seeing them in books and on screens is a very poor imitation and the reality of their raw shock and boldness needs to be experienced to be believed. Life, one of my favourites, on the left, for example, is 4.5 metres high by 2.5 wide. It’s hard to describe how something so ‘larger than life’ can take your breath away!

So where was God … amazingly in the ordinary of humanity. The work is very much about everyday life. We think there is nothing particularly spectacular about the subjects that Gilbert and George use (in the main!)but the media they use draws our attention to it and reminds us that, actually, our everyday ‘stuff’ is quite spectacular in itself.

I think that is the amazing thing about God. God is present in the ordinary. In fact, God is ‘at home’ in the ordinary that we call creation. We easily lose sight of this. Jesus spent these 40 days in the desert, as an ordinary everyday man; thirsting, being hungry, being a normal human being.

The plain ordinariness of that life is truly spectacular.

If you get a chance to see this exhibition, I’d recommend you take it. Some of the pieces will disturb you; some may even anger or repulse you. The Tate website is excellent and you can see all the pieces in the room guide by clicking on each room – but as I said, that won’t do it justice.

I wonder…

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On Friday, before joining the Hope 08 meeting in London I made the time to go to the Hogarth exhibition at Tate Britain. It’s fantastic and worth the visit – but be prepared to wait 6 deep away from paintings before you can get a good view!

I was struck by this painting of Moses being handed over to Pharaoh’s daughter as outlined in Exodus 2:10. Hogarth seems to have captured the atmosphere amazingly. The tears of the natural mother and the excitement and expectation of Pharaoh’s daughter leapt out of the piece with a clean and innocent contrast of mothers emotions.

I was captivated, however, by the look and stance of the little boy Moses. Not wanting to leave his mum, but bravely stepping towards the held out hand of his new foster mum while clutching tightly onto the robe of his tearful mother, not wanting to let go, but knowing that he has to. Knowing, in fact, that his survival depends on this simple, but incredibly brave, small step.

And than I wondered as I tend to do at such times…

Did Jesus feel like this when he left his fathers side to join us on earth?
Did he take those brave steps tearfully while clutching the cloak of God, worried about leaving, but knowing he had to go?
Was Jesus scared in the same way Moses was scared?
As he stepped away from the presence of God, did God himself cry while Mary eagerly awaited his arrival in her arms?
A divine human contrast where loves causes tears and joy over this child?
Were those cries of the babe in the manger, cries of a saviour leaving his God?
Sent out from everything he had ever known, into the unknown of his creation?
I wonder…

Unexpected Sanctuary

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Yesterday we went to London as a family treat. We went around the Britain at War exhibition before going for the eat all you can buffet at Pizza Hut.

During the afternoon, we visited both the V&A museum (although we missed out on Kylie costume tickets) and the Science museum. The day was fun and hectic!

In the middle, though, straight after lunch we walked across the road to visit Luminous, the latest exhibition by Brian Eno, which is in the basement of Selfridges and found an unexpected sanctuary from the hustle, bustle and noise of London. This was an amazing and welcome experience. We sat in the calm for around 20 minutes before one of the children asked if we could move on.

You can get a very small taste here if you have quicktime. Better still, get yourself along to Selfridges as Luminous is exhibited until 11th March.

State Britain

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To kill some time before Moot on Sunday (it seemed daft to drive home and back later!) I popped in for a wander around the Tate Britain and fell by accident upon State Britain, which somehow I had missed hearing about.

The Tate say:

Brian Haw began his protest against the economic sanction in Iraq in June 2001, and has remained opposite the Palace of Westminster ever since. On 23 May 2006, following the passing by Parliament of the ‘Serious Organised Crime and Police Act’ prohibiting unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square, the majority of Haw’s protest was removed. Taken literally, the edge of this exclusion zone bisects Tate Britain. Wallinger has marked a line on the floor of the galleries throughout the building, positioning State Britain half inside and half outside the border.

This is fantastic and worth making the effort to see as it stretches the full length of the Duveen galleries. I think it challenges our illusion that we are as feree as we think we are in the UK. If you do go – its fair to say that some of the photos of suffering, especially that of children (the enemy in Iraq? asks a placard) are quite nasty and tear provoking.

Christmas Card

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For the last year or so I have been making my own cards for certain things as the cards I find in the shops seem either incredibly overpriced or tacky.

At Christmas and Easter in particular, cards seem to be either nothing to do with Christmas or they use 1970 meek and mild baby Jesus pictures, with a nice comfortable stable which smeeled sweet, which I dislike intensely!

Yesterday I spent part of the day being creative by producing this Christmas card to send to my financial supporters. I wanted to show this was no meek and mild baby, but that this was a baby that had come with a mission, the painful task of saving the world.

I was quite pleased with this result. I was even more pleased when the house’s resident artist, aka Tom, said they were cool!

Can conflicting ideas lead to truth?

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Last week I managed to hold my first meeting of the day at the Tate Britain and so we took the opportunity to walk around the Turner Prize exhibition while we talked. The Prize, established in 1984, is awarded to a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work in the twelve months preceding 9 May 2006. The four nominated artists are innovative, although I did not really ‘get’ the Phil Collins stuff. I loved Mark Titchner’s ‘How to Change Behaviour’which is mind captivating and displayed a strange mix of new technologies and old techniques. He likes to place conflicting ideas next to each other and leave us to make up our own mind.

I kind of wonder, upon reflection, if that is a task that we, as the church of God, should be doing? New technologies and old techniques are easy to see and are used a lot where projectors are used to display images while Psalms are chanted.. Presenting conflicting ideas and leaving people to make up their own minds seems a little riskier – but if we believe it is God, through the Holy Spirit, who convicts where is the real risk?

I wonder – do we need to trust God more?
Do we need to fully take on board the reality that the Holy Spirit convicts people?
Is it time to put less effort into convincing people to accept our brand of truth and allow God to do his stuff?
Time to present the simple God story and leave people to work out what that means for them?

Can you guess …

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Can you guess where we went after the Remembrance service this morning? Unfortunately we did not get to slide, but we still had a good time.

We haven’t spent time together as a family in what seems like ages so we had a great car ride to London, parked, visited the Tate Modern, played surrealist dominoes (the Tate Modern do great packs for family games) before walking along the river, watching giant bubble blowers and fire jugglers before visiting Hamleys (at the childrens reqest!) and then ending the day by eating at Leicester Square courtesy of Tesco vouchers!

A great day!

Monday tomorrow … hmmm!

a weekend package of secrets

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On Friday a couple of long awaited packages arrived from Amazon and CD-wow and so I have been enjoyng the contents this weekend.

A number of books and cd’s were in the package. In particular I have been waiting for Postsecret which I pre-ordered a few weeks back and was published on November 2nd. (Amazon are still selling it at 50% discount!)Postsecret is a collection of postcards from the postsecret blog which I visit every Sunday when Frank Warren posts a new page.

A few years ago, Warren developed Postsecret as a community arts project. Basically, people send in, or confess, secrets on a postcard which are then posted on a blog. ‘Extraordinary confessions from ordinary lives’ says Warren on the back cover of this outstanding book.

Looking through the book makes me want to laugh and cry. The shared emotions here are both deep and raw. What started as a commuity art project has become something massive and amazing. People send in secrets on postcards. People go to great efforts to be creative with their cards as they reveal their deepest fears, desires, regrets and obsessions. I find these cards powerfully emtional as the book says I will!

The book is beautiful.
It’s beautiful due to the unique creativity displayed within each card.
It’s beautiful due the blend of unique and universal emotions being shared.
It’s beautiful due to the honest reality being exposed.
Within that beauty, I am wondering ‘why?’

Why do people send in their confessions?
Why are they so (sometimes painstakingly) creative?
What is happening here?
What do these people think they are doing?
Is this a postmodern progression from the catholic confessional or just some fun?
Is this evidence of a need to have an opportunity to confess in an anonymous way?
Does this project help people speak out, and get over, their guilt?

It’s great art, but I wonder if there is a lot more to think on here …

Bridge

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While having a read of Moot Blog I cam across a link to Bridge, by Michael Cross, which is part of the London Design Festival.

This sounds and looks like it could be quite strange, maybe a little scarey, but I’m interested to go see and take part, if only to see what a church looks like flooded with water. I’ve never walked on water – what better place than in a church! I like the idea of standing 12 metres away from ‘safety’ and wondering what that feels like.

Somehow I’ve got to check this out. Now, how do I engineer a meeting near to Canada Water?