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soul - ache - ideas, sounds and images between the already and the not-yet

on art and the public domain (or plagiarizing a canon)

   
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There's been a fair amount of media attention given to the latest arrest of graphic artist Shephard Fairey, this time under allegations by the Associated Press that Fairey's iconic "Hope" Poster of President Obama (now hanging in the Smithsonian )was modeled after an AP photo. [make your own Fairey-esque icon here]


The case centers around the idea of "fair use" and is ubiquitous enough as to state (in the copyright law, no less) 

"The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined." 

Fairey is not the first, nor will he likely be the last. What he has done is renew conversation on whether or not street art can, in fact, be fine art. (The [in]famous British artist Banksy has weighed in in graffiti form in the picture above). Some have dismissed Fairey's work as patently plagiarizing the works of others to pander to wanna-be indie revolutionaries. Others praise his creativity in leveraging the visage of none other than Andre the Giant into a cautionary Big Brother presence. 

Banksy has left his indelible social commentary all over Britain, New York, post-Katrina new Orleans, even the Palestinian walls of the West Bank. Business owners loathe the involuntary advertising that a new Banksy work brings their business, while others seek out the elusive artist for pieces for their personal collections.

Last month the New York Times reported the arrest of "Poster Boy ", a razor-blade whiz that slices peel-and-stick movie and product posters to (re)fashion mashed up displays of political expression and post-consumer dissent.

Meanwhile, in the beats-per-minute arena that is recorded music, Girl Talk is a one-man-mash-up-outfit that samples as many as 300 songs on their latest album. Greg Gillis, like Fairey, believes he is/should be covered by fair use laws and does not seem to fear a music industry that has gone from Big Brother to unmasked Oz since a college kid in Boston made Napster.

****This is not to mention any risks taken on this site by posting songs, links, images and information.****

The truth is, I find meaning, beauty and truth in each of the above artist's works. I think they speak to depths of human issues and experience, and rightly hold a mirror up to some of the shadowy sides of our "civilized" society. I'd even go so far as to say that by speaking truth, to power or otherwise, they become part and parcel of a Divine task.

And in terms of fair use, no one dared ask the Creator of all things for permission to indelibly alter the creation (see picture 2 above, from the Jesus for President tour last year). 

We do this all the time--around the water-cooler, through e-mails and texts. We're constantly swapping information about American Idol, Iran, a boyfriend pranking his girlfriend's hairdryer, whatever. Information is so freely exchanged that newspapers are ceasing daily service while providing comprehensive websites. Even the largest media outlets have cowered to public outcry, providing embeddable video and limitless Facebook and blogging tags.

In my "Introduction to Biblical Literature" Class I always start our conversation with the Gospel of Judas . It's a 4th century text that surfaced a few years back under much published pomp and televised circumstance. Scholars weren't shocked--the Gospel was throughly Gnostic , though it was rightly noted as being among the books denounced by many early church fathers.

I always ask the class to consider whether or not Judas should be included in the canon or not. Their answers vary considerably, but normally there is a palpable sense of unease. Here exists a document that seems to be untrustworthy, but it's origins are reasonably comparable with many of the manuscripts of the New Testament--"In or out?" is suddenly not such an easy question to answer.

A very wise professor in college once said "everyone has a canon within the canon." What he meant was that regardless of how much Christians (or anyone else for that matter) affirm Scripture as "true", we all have certain passages we cling to more closely than others.

I would (and have since) argue that the Canon must always be open. Our Canon is constantly changing as we take in the height, depth and breadth of the created world--as we observe the Divine gift of creativity rightly expressed by others that speaks of truth and beauty.

So, during this season of Lent, we must confess of our own plagiarism.

We confess that we no more came up with our own songs then we lifted them from the birds.

We confess that even our best portraits don't convey the image of God a person bears.

We confess that snapshots of cliffs and waterfalls will never convey the majesty of the real thing.

We confess that our fussing about rights and royalties has more to do with greed than with truth.

We confess that all truth is God's truth, and settling for anything less would just be lying to ourselves.

 

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Filed under  //   art   Banksy   beauty   canon   culture   fair use   Girl Talk   lent   plagiarism   Poster Boy   Shephard Fairey   truth   vandalism  
Posted March 2, 2009
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on seeing Jesus in our own image (or Mark Driscoll, Messiah, and me)

I already wasn't a real big fan of Mark Driscoll and then I read this. I decided to post it on Facebook to some considerable feedback, equally funny and inappropriate, and strangely, almost exclusively male. I have struggled with how to respond to the Jesus he presents--I like to think of it as the Cage Fighter Jesus. 


Cage-Fighter Jesus doesn't take any crap from anybody--Pharisees, smart-mouthed disciples--even demons run from him. Cage-Fighter Jesus is "a prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg a sword in his hand and a commitment to make people bleed. That is the guy I can worship." by Driscoll's own words.

I don't like Cage-fighter Jesus because I don't think that's the whole picture of Jesus. I'm tempted to pick apart Driscoll bit-by-bit as others have, but a good friend talked me out of it. Because, as my wife the social worker always says, "What's really going on here?" or, to use the words of someone else "This is really about that." 

It seems to me that the trap Driscoll fell into is one we all can fall into--trying to picture Christ and having a hard time refraining from ascribing characteristics to him that you like about yourself, or like the better, stronger, faster, prettier more improved version of you. That tattooed prize-fighter looks a lot like Driscoll would want to esteem himself and I have to put myself under the microscope too. Yesterday I was thinking about this and wondering what aspects I assign to Jesus from my own sense of self and it dawned on me that a Jesus who is shorter than me would be hard to imagine. I'm 6'5" and while I wouldn't wish my obesity on the Savior, looking down at a Mediterranean man of average height for his day, he couldn't have been much more than 5'7" or so. It would be a little weird looking down at my Messiah. The superfluities of physical stature aside, I would esteem him as smart, compassionate--much slower with the tongue (or pen) than I am.

I remember reading a little book by N.T. Wright from 15 years ago called Who Was Jesus? He's written more clearly and expansively in other books, but he used an image at the very beginning of the book that I've never forgotten, mostly because it was so vivid and true.

"Think of a Victorian drawing room, hung with faded portraits. they stare down at you; respectable, aloof, worthy, a bit faded. The frames are heavy, gilt-edged, cracked here and there. Now imagine a man, with wild hair and flashing eyes, bursting into the room. He rushes round, tearing the portraits from the walls as though in a frenzy. He smashes the glass in the frames and tramples on teh paintings with his dirty boots. Then, when the walls are bare, he takes from inside his coat a single sheet of paper. On it we see, drawn in rough black crayon, a stark outline of a figure, not unlike himself, with a  wild, visionary face. It is the sort of figure to which people are either instinctively drawn or from which they instinctively recoil. He slaps it in the middle on the main wall of the room, so that it hangs by the nail where the chief old portrait had been."

Wright goes on to finish the analogy by saying the man is Albert Schweitzer, the (in)famous author of  The Quest for the Historical Jesus and the one chiefly responsible for giving humanity permission to risk blasphemy in re-imagining Jesus, even when he bears striking resemblance tot he beholder. 

Ever since Schweitzer, we could easily put Driscoll, my (or any other person's name) in his place. The Jesus we picture often is an portrait of the  qualities we wish we had. Or, as Jen put it so clearly yesterday "We want to be conformed to the image of Christ but then form Christ into our idealized self."

And these competing Jesuses are all around us.

Maybe you, like me, regretted spending the $3.99 pay-per-view fee to watch Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby but it was worth it for this one conversation.



Brian McLaren uses the clip in his presentation "Which Jesus?" for his Everything Must Change tour and I think he's right--it raises all sorts of questions about our most basic portraits and assumptions of Jesus. (If you have a minute, check it out. The last 3 slides are worth the jump!)

And then there's the pictures of Jesus through history--the ones that hang in the Victorian library and that, once ripped down, magically reappear like items in a video game. But which history? Post-Constantinian Christianity gave a standard, pasty-white, almost uniformly bearded Jesus, but China, Ethiopia and the Caribbean picture him quite differently. When we read the Gospels, we tend to ask ourselves "How do we read Jesus differently in this text then we have before?" Perhaps the same question has to asked when we confront other views of Jesus--What things do we find in them to be true and what things should be rejected?

                                           
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As difficult as it may be to be an art critic of my own hand-painted Jesus portrait, it is the idea of Jesus which pushes me to find it lacking. As exhaustive and varied as the images are above, they are still dim reflections of the hopes of some, not all, of humanity.

Yesterday as my friend and I were talking we mentioned the view expressed by someone else who was torn between two competing images. Commenting on the tension of an "either/or" he suggested a "both/and"--a Jesus of the "third way". 

I replied too quickly and said "That's good! You should write that down!" and before the words got all the way out he added--"but Christ is the Way, not the third way--so it can't be a substitute, one image for another--Christ has to be in all and through all." 

Swapping images is like building a better mouse trap or trading baseball cards. I like the Liberating Christ of South America, but I'm also drawn to the Good Shepherd. I hate the Cage-fighter Christ, but I l have to admit, the "Che-like Christ" appeals to my inner revolutionary. I see the suffering of the Caribbean Christ who was forced to wear shackles and implements of torture for the perceived betterment of a people, not unlike the slaves that populated those tiny islands. I like the forensic computer generated model because it appeals to my sense of what's true, though I know who Jesus was had little to do his nose or jaw-line. I love Caravaggio, but his chubby pasty Jesus looks a little too Bacchus-like for me.

A great artist and former professor from college paints beautiful oil paintings. The colors are rich and vivid, Rembrandt like in his use of light and shadows. He only paints one face--his own. His argument is that it's the only one he really knows, that he can really study.

I have to remind myself when I go to painting Jesus that I may be going at it all backwards. 

I have to remember that in the face of Jesus there is joy and sorrow, pain and laughter.

I have to re-think what Jesus actually would do, not just what other paintings say.

I have to let that search renew me, even when it means tearing down all the old pictures.

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Filed under  //   art   images   jesus  
Posted January 12, 2009
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