Bill Gates is the "Antichrist" Says Art Destroyer

IN A NEW WEBSITE, Kathleen Folden, the Montana truck driver who last year destroyed an Enrique Chagoya lithograph in Colorado says she was appointed by God for the task. Folden also names Microsoft Founder, Bill Gates as the antichrist and predicts that the rapture will take place on May 14. The lithograph, "The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals" (above) was created by Roman Catholic artist, Enrique Chagoya as a political statement about the politics of his church. During the controversial run of the exhibit, Chagoya was befriended by local evangelical pastor Jonathon Wiggons, and on her website, Folden also attacks Wiggons.

Read More

Altmejd's Angels at Andrea Rosen Gallery

ARTIST DAVID ALTMEJD says, “I’ve really been into Catholic visuals in the past few years.” He isn't however religious. “I just like the metaphors and the imagery,” he said. His ghostly gothic art with decapitated noses, crystaline blood vessels and angels, such as "The Vessel" (above) continues through April 23 at the Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street in NYC.

Read More

PROJECT: FOUNDATION

BY ERNEST BRITTON

Advancement by Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts continued this past week as we were brought to Ohio to lead a workshop at Xavier University, a Roman Catholic school in Cincinnati. Using the artwork of 2008 GAMMY award winner, Kehinde Wiley, we explored the imagery of faith and masculinity. Presented in partnership with DevonshireSmith Diversity Solutions, it was a powerful program for the all-male participants. We also continued to finalize plans for the April educational tour on April 23 & 24 to Saint Louis, MO and featuring the George Rouault exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Religious Arts. It's not yet too late to join us!

Read More

SABBATH ART | NEWS IN REVIEW

ART OF THE WEEK:

A new book on meditations through art from Malta (above), and other religious and spiritual arts news of the past week are listed below. News stories are grouped into four broad categories: At Home; Congregations; Galleries; and Museums.

AT HOME:

• Disney's Mystical "Brave" Releases Artworks (Entertainment Weekly)
• Film Posters with Religious Overtones (Hey You Guys UK)
• An Upscale Religious Refuge Near Mexico City (San Jose Mercury News)
• Dance Review: Sacred Art and Ritual of Hawaiian Hula (The New York Times)

CONGREGATIONS:

• Miami Muralist Serge Toussaint brightens Miami’s neighborhoods (Miami Herald)
• Franciscan Friars Launch Website About Holy Land Shrines (God Discussion)
• Meditations Meet Art in New Book (Times of Malta)
• Pakistani Govt Engages Shrines in Fighting Extremism (International News)
• Awe-Struck in India: Bustling Streets and Dazzling Shrines (Boston Herald)
• Mirabile Dictu: "Wonderful to Relate" (Bettendorf News)
• Mexican's Fill Pews in NYC Catholic Churches (The New York Times)

GALLERIES:

• David Altmejd’s Gorgeous Gothic at Andrea Rosen Gallery (The New York Times)
• John Martin's Heaven and Hell at Laing Art Gallery (The Telegraph)
• Sculpting Biblical Scenes With Soap, Coffee, Floor Wax (The Catholic Transcript)
• US Eastern Spirituality as a Group Show at the Copy Cat (Radar Redux)
• Art Challenges Tunisian Revolutionaries (ALJAZEERRA)
• Ad Executive Follows Passion to Create Judaica (The New York Times)

MUSEUMS:

• Theater Review: "Skinwalking" at Harvard U (The Harvard Crimson)
• French Church & State Co-exist in Chicago (Chicago Sun Times)
• Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" (Yale Daily News)
• Haitian Art at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence Journal)
• A "Saint John's Bible" Purchase for Loyola U (Catholic Review)
• Atta Kim rinses off "Ice Buddha" at Rubin Museum of Art (Wall Street Journal)
• Ancient Holy Art: The Mandala (The Star)
• Art Review: A Spiritual Connection (The New York Times)
• Trucker Who Destroyed Art at Museum Launches Website (The Coloradoan)
• Cincinnati Art Museum Conserves Tiffany Church Windows (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Artist Liz Asher Bible artworks at Horsham Museum (West Sussex County Times)

Read More

INSPIRE ME! Artist, Kelly Nieto

THE LIVING STATIONS is a Passion Play-Musical created by theater artist Kelly Nieto, who 10 years ago joined the Catholic faith after being raised with no religion at all. Nieto said she had the vision during her first Good Friday mass at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Farmington, Michigan. This year's production moved from her church to the Cathedral of the Most Holy Sacrament allowing over 18,000 to experience it. Maybe in 2012 we should head up to experience the "Living Stations of the Cross" in Detroit, MI.

Read More

Mass: Enthroning Home in Sacred Heart

Read More

INSPIRE ME: Artist, Salvador Dali

By CHARLIE GOETZ


"The Sacrament of the Last Supper"
By Salvador Dali

Last year I posted a blog about art and commerce.  Nowhere do the two combine more famously than in the person of Salvador Dali.  A formidable artist--his representationalism (the Crucifixions, his Last Supper) is something of a fine throwback to the Old Masters, while his Surrealism was cutting edge.  But he was also a tireless self-promoter.

Because of that characteristic, I, recently out of college and happily toiling as "editor for the arts" of a small, well-intentioned, New York-based news magazine (long since defunct), was able to garner an interview with Dali.

A preppy kid, the son of a vice-president of the St. Regis Hotel--Dali's New York digs--who was a friend of our "international editor," used to hang out in our cramped, Mad. Ave. offices after school.  Roderigo was quickly drawn to my desk because I was the daily recipient of a truckload of celebrity  photos, accompanied by whatever blurb agents and p. r. people hoped to get into print.  I could use only a very few of the pix and none of the copy.  So I gave away the considerable surplus to a grateful Rodrigo.

On one of his visits, Roderigo casually asked, "Would you like to interview Salvador Dali?"  Somehow I kept from falling off my chair and managed to suppress, "Yeah, and I'd also like to sleep with_____________!"  (Fill in the blank.)

But the kid was serious.  Dali was then a guest at the St. Regis ("my father's hotel") because he was contributing art to the '64 World's Fair's Spanish Pavillion.

Rodrigo was as good as his offer.  Next day, he told me that he had arranged with his dad for me to have a noontime half-hour with Dali in the King Cole Bar, the following Friday--which happened to be Good Friday, that year.  BUT I was to submit in advance ten questions in French.  Dali claimed to have no English and I did not speak Spanish, much less Dali's native Catalan. 

As luck had it, my best friend in high school had been a French boy at whose home I regularly hung out.  The house rule was that, once indoors, only French was spoken.  My schoolboy grasp of the language was considerably strengthened as a consequence. 

Further serendipity had brought a young Catalonian photographer, in the US studying cinema, to our offices to do contract work.  Pepe, as we called him, was married to a girl from Lyon who spoke no Spanish.  She and Pepe communicated in French.  So, it turned out, did English-free Pepe and Report's editor for the arts.  I was not totally unarmed for the encounter with Dali. 

Good Friday found Pepe, the St. Regis v. p. and me not in church but at a large round table in a corner of the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis Hotel.  Roderigo, the founder of the feast, was in school.

At the appointed hour, Dali swept in, his togs set off by a florid brocaded vest, one of a collection, I was told.  He carried an ornate, gold-headed walking stick; he collected walking sticks, too, I was informed.  He sported his everyday, waxed and pointed moustache.  Reportedly, he had a more formidable extension he spirit-gummed on for TV appearances.   

The artist was accompanied by two burly Spaniards in greasy suits who did not sit but rather stationed themselves behind Dali's chair.  From a hovering waiter, without a by-your-leave from his fellows at the table, Dali ordered martinis all 'round.  When they were delivered, Dali reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a pill box which he slid open.  He extracted a quantity of smooth pebbles and, reaching around the table, dropped one into each martini. 

"What are those, Senor Dali?" I ventured to inquire, in French of course.

"They are martini stones," he replied and took a sip of his drink.  Since he did not immediately keel over, the rest of us figured the additions were relatively harmless and quaffed our martinis.  Just before each glass was drained, without comment Dali again reached around, took back the stones, and put them into the pill box which he closed and returned to his vest pocket.

Summarily, Dali disposed of my ten questions.  In an unexpected response to one of them, he declared with admirable candor, I thought: "I am like the god Mercury.  I love money."

The interview should have ended there, but apparently Dali was enjoying himself.  He ordered lunch as did we, this time allowed to make our own selections.  I struggled for conversation.  The vice-president prompted, "Ask him about the flies."  I had no clue, but I dutifully queried, "Please tell about the flies, Senor Dali."

It appears that Dali had decided that, for some kind of project,  he needed live flies from Mount Olympus.  They were duly collected, packaged and flown to New York.  The New York temperature was colder than that to which the flies were accustomed.  Accordingly, they dozed. 

When they were brought to Dali's suite, he opened the box, looked at the snoozing flies, and kicked the container into a closet.  The St. Regis temperature was cozy.  The flies woke up and swarmed--out of the closet, out of the suite and around the hotel, astonishing guests, some of whom probably gave up alcohol as a result of the plague of flies in March in the St. Regis.

Pleased with Pepe's presence, Dali invited him to visit his suite, the following Sunday morning, to photograph "Dali getting out of bed."  In the resultant pictures, Dali, in nightcap and long nightshirt, looks like a Moliere character.   

The artist sent the Spanish hoods up to his suite to bring down some of the exquisite jewelry work he was fashioning for the Spanish Pavillion.  As we were admiring his artistry, silently, wraith-like, Dali's wife, Gala, appeared and stood between the thugs--excuse me, guards--behind Dali.  She was a thin, faded blonde woman, dressed all in black. 

Dali rose, introduced her and was gone, followed by Gala and the guards.  She never said a word.

It seemed as if, somehow, she were his reality spirit.  He had had his hour of play; now it was time to get back to work--to a more serious side of the business--and I do mean "business"--of being Salvador Dali.

(The new Salvador Dali Museum opened last month in Florida)

Read More