![]() ![]() According to their Inquisition, all religion-especially Catholicism-is bad. It is an extension of academic preaching that began with the Frankfurt School. Trashing Christian beliefs has become a tired strategy. ![]() Maria Alyokhina’s complaints seemed trivial in comparison. When his body was carried out, his fellow inmates risked death to kneel. Paval Florensky worked on scientific experiments during his 10-year imprisonment. ![]() Maria Alyokhina-who was allowed to watch videos in her Berezniki Prison cell-complained when the authorities confiscated a film by Jean-Luc Godard because it contained nudity. The Russian Da Vinci, priest, scientist, and aesthetician got a bullet in the back of the head in 1937, after 10 years in the Gulag. Their sentence was harsh, but not as harsh as Pavel Florensky’s. Pussy Riot’s choice of this venue was distasteful, and made many “old believers” hearts sink. It was rebuilt after Glasnost by donations from ordinary people as a sign of resurrection and hope. For Orthodox Christians this was like the Taliban blowing up ancient statues of Buddha. The Bolsheviks dynamited Christ the Savior to the ground. To cut down a sacred grove in the ancient world was punishable by death.įirst there is the history: between 40 and 60 million Orthodox Christians died in the gulags, including most of the clergy, the biggest martyrdom of Christians in history. To defile any temenos precinct-be it Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, or Muslim-is not okay. They performed in front of the iconostasis or templon (a wall dividing the altar from the sanctuary probably derived from the Torah screen), a link between heaven and the nave. For me, it comes down to defiling the sacred. If Pussy Riot had protested in Putin’s office, it would have been fine. Many Russian Orthodox followers do not support Putin or the views of Patriarch Kirill. ![]() I don’t fancy the carwash beneath Moscow’s rebuilt Christ the Savior, or the current Patriarch’s gifted Rolex and support for Putin. I am not a fan of Putin, and would have joined the chain of protesters encircling Moscow. Their trial smacked of Stalinist-era repression. Why did I refuse to support Free Pussy Riot? As someone who has railed against Popes, is a feminist, and had a gay Jewish cannibal teaching my art history class, I should have. Where is the artist as light bringer in these dark times? Transgression as an art idea is becoming shop-worn we need artistic creation that is positive and transformational. In many cases, the underlying motivation seems more about narcissism, the opposite of reflection. You get the most attention by trashing Christianity the Jews and Muslims don’t put up with it and you risk an Anti-Defamation League lawsuit or a fatwa. Transgressive art, some well conceived and some boringly puerile, has become a strategy. Ever since Charles Saatchi cashed in on Sensation, we’ve known that transgression sells. Today, a lot of transgression has become about eating the fat of the sacred cattle for quick fame and art market lucre. Greedy Hermes saves the best fatty meat for himself, and gives bones wrapped up in hide to the other gods, defiling the sacred for personal gain and passing off the inedible. Hermes steals the fire sticks and Apollo’s sacred cattle, and then invents a way to cook the meat for consumption. In his alchemical form Hermes-Mercury is quicksilver the god of uncontrollable movement, unpredictable and impossible to pin down. Without transgression there is no movement, entrenched ideas stay entrenched. Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto represents the extreme with his loathing and destruction of old political and artistic traditions-let’s toss Raphaels into the canal to make way for the new. Some Minimalist artists were upset when Julian Schnabel’s broken plates shattered their dreams of a lasting Minimalist reign. Hermes also steals the fire, as precocious upstarts are likely to do. Transgression always has to do with acts against the establishment, be it Olympus or the old guard. Apollo is the god of the establishment, of architecture, the plastic arts, and the sublime. Fresh from the womb he steals Apollo’s sacred cattle, and with cunning covers his tracks by walking backwards. Hermes is a cattle thief, messenger, trickster, boundary crosser, and a god who represents a lot of artists. ![]()
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