Persecuted, not Abandoned

These were the last two pictures I snapped on my camera before it broke. This is a student artwork located in front of the Gaddy-Hamrick Art Building at Meredith. The rest of this post is quoted from the February 18th, 2009 edition of The Meredith Herald, in the article “A Controversial Crucifix” by staff writer Erin Huber:

The artwork, “Jesus,” was made by Jen Leiner in Professor Pearce’s sculpture class. It was part of an ongoing theme that Leiner has used with many of her projects. It involves looking at almost forgotten stories of the holocaust. Leiner wasn’t necessarily trying to make a direct religious statement; according to Leiner her goal was to “resurrect, so to speak, the memories, art, and people that have been scattered to the wind.”

The story behind this sculpture dates back to World War II. The original crucifix was created by Ludwig Gies and was hung in Lubeck Cathedral. Leiner said that “it went against Hitler’s ideas of a ‘New Germany.’” So, unfortunately, it was removed and became part of a 1937 exhibition in Berlin entitled “Entartete Kunst” or “Degenerate Art.” The story of this sculpture ends with the Nazis cutting the head off the figure and burning it to ashes. It’s a story who thought that all the country should agree with his tastes in art, and a story of intolerance in general.

Some of that story seems to have come back to haunt Leiner’s artwork. Not everyone is ready to be tolerant of the religious sculpture, and most people who get upset about it don’t even go up to the sculpture to read the description on the sign next to it. They don’t realize that the primary concept behind the sculpture isn’t about religion. Professor Pearce siad that sometimes her class likes to just watch and see what people’s reactions to the sculptures outside Gaddy-Hamrick are. Sometimes people stop for a second and stare, often they look and then walk on. Interestingly enough, Professor Pearce said that a sculpture of the head of the Indian god, Krishna, was actually on display for a while, and no one noticed. People seemed to classify that as more of a cultural object than a religious one.

Should there have been a controversy over the sculpture? We are facing similar questions all over America. There have been numerous cases of controversies over freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and where the line is drawn between the two. Should this have ever caused a problem? And in this case, the sculpture wasn’t even meant to be a purely religious symbol. But that is the one good aspect of all this controversy. Professor Pearce said that the goal of the sculptures in her class is for the art to create a dialogue- either an internal or external one. I think “Jesus” has definitely achieved that.

So, ponder that.

~ by princeje on February 23, 2009.