100 Artists See God

by David Maddox

Having 100 artists roll into the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville with visions of God sounds like a challenge to Christians. After all, God is our business. The Bible tells us to get out there and spread the good news of God in Christ. We likely assume a group of artists means people embedded in a secular world of galleries and aesthetics, far from the talk of God. The sense that artists keep silent in society’s conversation about God inspired this show’s organizers, artists John Baldesssari and Meg Cranston, to ask 100 artists to submit a work expressing their view of God. Contributions came from leading figures like Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst, Catherine Opie, and Susan Rothenberg. Most are prominent in the international visual arts community, but few are known for their theological interests or role in religious communities.

Only the most narrow-minded church-goer would fail to realize that the Bible makes it clear that we are to look for God in unlikely places, not in those who lift themselves up as champions of piety: the Samaritan who acts as neighbor to the man in the road, the humble tax collector as opposed to the Pharisee. The exhibit at Cheekwood presents Christians with a wonderful opportunity to see some of the possible visions of God expressed by people with lively minds.

A few things strike you in the artists’ visions. First of all, their diversity. The curators grouped the works under titles that range from “Artists See God as Tyrant” to “God as Miracle Worker, Mother, and Light”. They ended up with 16 categories, and some of the pieces stretch even these. It seems we all can agree on God’s infinite breadth.

Secondly, each viewer will respond to different works for the insight they provide on God’s nature. Sculptor Jorge Pardo decided that if God is present, the most likely places to look are in the utilitarian and ordinary, and in the asymmetrical and unexpected. He translated those qualities into a functional plywood coffee table with a top cut in an irregular pattern, stained avocado green. Some of the artists see God embodied in great beauty, like Diana Thater who created a video, “Composite Sun,” by animating images of the sun taken from space by NASA. The photos translated the sun’s light and radiation into simple but vivid colors which intertwine and eddy on the sphere as it spins tranquilly. Gary Simmons’s “Black Star Shower” arrays a dense group of stars rendered in simple black charcoal lines with smears trailing upwards, like the tails of shooting stars. The black on white composition reverses the tones of meteors in the night sky, and reflects this African-American artist’s vision of associating grace with darkness, not just light. It mirrors the act of changing consciousness necessary for white Americans to overcome prejudice and see the beauty and merit in their brothers and sisters with darker skin.

Finally, many of the works express alienation from God and the Church. Very few of the artists indicate an affiliation with a religion, more often stating their independence from and even distrust of churches and Christianity. Some works portray a hostile relationship with God, such as Scott Geiger’s play on a common “Beware of Dog” sign that reverses the letters in the last word to read “Beware of God.” (Of course, this sign could also serve as a gloss on Kirkegaard who saw the need to tremble before God.) We may feel these works indicate a sad alienation from God and from the Church, which for all its human failings tries to follow Christ. However, this show challenges us to listen to the criticisms and consider what basis in truth they may have.

The show presents Christians with an even bigger challenge. If the Church and its members love God so much, have we responded by expressing that love with as much creativity and passion as the artists in this show? Where is art of comparable complexity and quality that has its foundation in the Church, its teachings and life? We can take the easy way out, play the victim, and assume that some art world prejudice suppresses Christian artists of great skill, but let’s be honest. It is hard to point to the artists who, hearing Christ’s story, respond with the power of artists from earlier generations like Rembrandt, Michelangelo, or Van Eyck. We need to question how well our churches champion and challenge artists in our midst, encourage them to believe we care what they have to say, and also push them to speak in ways that stir the soul more deeply, engage the intellect rigorously, and delight the senses in sophisticated ways. The art world does this well, and has much to teach us about what Christian art in today’s world could look like.

Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art is located at 1200 Forrest Park Drive, Nashville, TN 37205. The telephone number is 615-356-8000. The exhibit runs February 4 through April 16.