arts issue 23:2 (online)
In this issue, we begin with an article by John Handley that offers us an introduction to the work of Patrick Graham in his essay Patrick Graham: Waiting for the Silence. Graham is one of Ireland’s major artists and a current exhibition
of his work is now in San Francisco, and will travel to Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and St. Louis. This article is a part of that exhibition catalogue.
Our second article is about one of the museums where Patrick Graham’s work will be exhibited, MOCRA, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art at St. Louis Univeristy. The article is an interview with its director, Terry Dempsey. The interview first appeared in Art and Christianity, the publication of ACE, the Arts in Christian Enquiry, an international organization focused on religion and the arts and located in London. arts and sarts have long been related to ACE through the mutual work of its members. Its 20th International Conference will take place this July 9-13 in Boston. There is an ad for the conference in this issue. ACE would welcome your interest in attending!
James McCullough has provided us a wonderful essay on the work of Graham Sutherland entitled Twentieth Century Grunewald: Reclaiming Graham Sutherland for Christian Art. The essay has a special focus on Sutherland’s Crucifixion, a work commissioned by the Anglican parish church of St. Matthew in Northampton, England. The painting and the commissioning of the work have been dealt with by a number of writers including Graham Howes in his essay in Visual Theology, edited by Robin Jensen and Kim Vrudny. McCullough’s work is an engaging and insightful addition to scholarship on the subject.
In each issue we reprint an article from an earlier year that has demanded a great deal of interest from our readers. The article we have chosen is From Bak to the Bible: Imagination, Interpretation, and Tikkun Olam by Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Phillips (arts 21:1, 2009). It is an excellent presentation of the contemporary Jewish artist, Samuel Bak, and his treatment of Holocaust themes and their appropriation in our time.
Finally, we have a recap of the sarts November 2011 annual meeting in San Francisco by Deborah Haynes and two brief pieces on events there. One is by Mark Burrows who has written on the sarts session on poetry: Poet Jane Hirshfield addresses sarts session at AAR and Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu’s notes on sarts Panel Honors Alejandro Garcia-Rivera.
Click here to download an essay from this article: Patrick Graham: Waiting for the Silence by John Handley.
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