Curator of medieval art Melanie Holcomb and curator of drawings and prints George Goldner discuss the Museum’s responsibilities when showing religious art …
‘It is our job to present works of art with fidelity to the purpose and historical context and aesthetic context in which they were made.’
Watch & listen here.
The Heart of the World
Guy Maddin, Canada, 2000, 6 min
Two brothers, mortician Nikolai and actor Osip (playing Christ in a Passion play), love the same woman—scientist Anna, who studies the Earth’s core, or the « heart of the world. » Anna discovers that the world is in danger. In order to save it, she must choose between the brothers, and finally decides on a rich industrialist, Akmatov. As a result, the very heart of the world has a heart attack. Realizing what she has done, she strangles Akmatov and enters the Earth’s core, replacing the failed heart with her own. The world is then saved by the new message, Kino.
‘The projected images within these photographs are images found on the internet of people who have died; some are news photos, some are Facebook photos, and some are from other sources. These images were downloaded and projected into a space that was either important to that person in life or was the site of their death. The images are then reintroduced to the internet in their newly contextualized form. I do not have a personal relationship with any of the subjects’ …
… ‘These images were a copy of a copy but by reintegrating them into the physical world and treating them as spiritual fragments I hope to instill them with new life. Western culture, unlike many other cultures, resists the idea of ghostly presence. The work suggests that if we cannot as a culture see these symbols, perhaps we must create them in order to tap into their emotive power. I am also fascinated by the digital thumbprints that are left behind and exporting this data into the real world for a fleeting moment.’
Torin Stephens, photographer and painter living in Portland, OR.
torinstephens.tumblr.com
Possessed ‘The Exorcist’ de l’album Seven Churches (1985)
‘Possessed performs ‘The Exorcist’ in Baltimore, 1987.’
Clergy take lessons on demonic possession, exorcism
The rite, those few priests who have performed it say, can unfold as a quiet prayer session or a show of violence.
The afflicted person may curse the cleric, speak in a voice not his or her own, even assume facial features that one priest described as « reptilian. »
But in the great majority of cases in which a Catholic seeks an exorcism, church officials say, what the person really needs is help of a less dramatic nature: a doctor, a therapist or simple pastoral counseling.
With some parishes seeing an increase in claims of demonic possession in the United States, the Roman Catholic Church is training its clergy in how to respond to requests for the ancient rite. More than 100 bishops and priests attended a November workshop on the subject in Baltimore.
Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, who organized the two-day, closed-door event at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, says pastors need help discerning the difference between those who need an exorcist and those who only believe they do.
The goal, he says, was to help the clergy counsel people who believe they are possessed by a demon by referring them to a physician, a therapist, or — in very rare cases, he stresses — an exorcist.
« We have only a small number of priests who have any training in this area in the United States, » said Paprocki, who heads the Diocese of Springfield, Ill. « Every diocese should really have its own resources. »
While no one is keeping statistics, he says anecdotal reports suggest that the phenomenon of people claiming to be possessed « seems to have increased in the last five years or so » …
Read the full article by Arthur Hirsch in The Baltimore Sun (January 10, 2011).
