Religious spaces present opportunities for art to be appreciated in innovative ways. Meryl Doney explains.
It is Easter 2004. For a week, Antony Gormleys figure Rise has been lying, facing east, in the central chapel of Canterbury Cathedral, the ancient place of pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket. A blue-green, flickering light has been playing over the churchs central crossing. As midnight approaches, the congregation of some 2,000 people witness the culmination of this remarkable installation by light artist Willie Williams as the crossing is bathed from above in golden light. This was part of the exhibition, Presence: Images of Christ for the Third Millennium, which comprised 13 different exhibitions involving 50 artists and six cathedrals in an exploration of contemporary visual images of the person of Christ.
This exhibition kicked into a higher gear the work on the interface between art and faith that I had already been doing as a freelance curator. And it brought into focus some of the exciting potential of such an undertaking. I found a refreshing enthusiasm from artists to work with the resonances that sacred spaces can offer. In Worcester, for example, paintings by Martin Rose and Haydns Seven Last Words played by the Lindsay Quartet informed one another, as they became part of an Easter meditation. Fenwick Lawson found in Durham the appropriate scale for his unique (and huge) sculptures. At the same time, the buildings themselves are subtly influenced by the works sited in them. St Pauls Cathedral seemed to pulsate with the breaths of Bill Violas video and sound installation The Messenger. Alan Keans radios, installed in the pews of the Episcopal Cathedral Glasgow, brought a faint echo of the world as a striking counterpoint to the liturgy.
The exhibition Presence grew out of an earlier experiment in bringing together art and faith for the millennium. Art In Sacred Spaces 2000, curated by Anne Mullins, involved installations in twelve churches across North London, with artists Bobby Baker, Ian Breakwell, David Cotterrell, Tracey Emin, Sokari Douglas Camp, Rachel Whiteread, Keith Khan, Damien Hirst, Catherine Yass, Mark Wallinger and Claude Heath. This very successful exhibition pointed up some of the complexities as well as the joys of such collaborations. Accommodations had to be made. St Lukes Holloway had to accommodate raked seating for a performance by Bobby Baker and St Stephens Canonbury allowed Damien Hirsts The Last Supper prints to be hung around the walls. A real effort was made to include all faith communities in the project, but it was evident that churches and synagogues were the most used to relating to contemporary artists: work still needs to be done in building relationships and widening the scope of the faith encounters possible.
As a direct result of these projects, I have been able to work increasingly with artists and religious spaces in recent years. As well as a various projects cooperating with the City of London Festival, using some of the city churches as venues for its innovative arts stream, The Diocese of London has offered the use of a City church in which to show visual art that relates to ideas of the spiritual, on a more permanent basis. All Hallows London Wall is a working church, albeit with a very small congregation. It is home to several small arts organisations and has a history of interest in social justice and the arts. Called Wallspace, it will continue to be a sacred space in which we can explore liturgy, music and performance as part of a series of exhibitions and events. Damien Hirst will again feature his series of prints and sculpture New Religion, together with some new, site-specific work, will be the first exhibition starting in March this year. Watch this space&
Meryl Doney is Research Manager at the South Bank Centre and Hayward Gallery, Director of Wallspace, and a freelance curator.
e: info@wallspace.org.uk;
w: http://www.wallspace.org.uk