Byzantine icon Our Lady of Perpetual Succor (circa 1400)
Katharina Fritsch, Madonnenfigur, 1987
Rauschenberg's Erased De Kooning Drawing, 1953
The Vasari reading for the week is online here. Next class we will
discuss the illusion of light and space.
In class, Tom talked about religious icons, reinterpretations of iconic
practices, and religious and secular iconoclasm. Historically, an icon
was a likeness or representation considered to have a divine provenance.
After the lecture, how would you define an icon today? Can you think
of any examples of contemporary iconoclasm in relation to
contemporary icons?
Here is a post about iconoclasm today, from Artforum.com
ReplyDeleteWOMAN ARRESTED IN COLORADO AFTER DESTROYING ARTWORK
Artforum.com 10/07/10
A Montana woman was arrested Wednesday at a Colorado museum after she destroyed an artwork that some observers say depicts Jesus engaged in a sex act, Dave Itzkoff reports for the New York Times. The Denver Post reported that Kathleen Folden of Kalispell, Montana, was taken into police custody after she entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery in Loveland, Colorado, and destroyed a work called The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals, a lithograph by Enrique Chagoya. The police told the Post that Folden had used a crowbar or similar tool to break the Plexiglas in front of the work and then tore it up. She has been charged with criminal mischief, a felony punishable by a fine of up to $2,000.
For several days the museum has faced protests for displaying the work, which also depicts comic book characters, images from Mexican pornography, and Mayan symbols. The Post reported that Daryle Klassen, a Loveland city councilman, objected to the display during a council meeting, calling it “smut” and adding, “That’s not what our community is about.” Some Roman Catholics in Loveland had also sought to have the work taken down.
Chagoya, a professor of art and art history at Stanford University, told the Post that the lithograph was a commentary on revelations of child abuse by Catholic priests. “My work is about critiquing institutions and politics,” Chagoya said. “I wasn’t trying to portray Christ; it’s a collage of cutouts from different books.”