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‘Ruth & Naomi’, one of the pieces in Made in God’s Image Hitlist THE BEST EVENTS, BOOKS & LGBT*
Defender of the faith A GOMA exhibition looking at LGBTI people’s relationship to the Bible has angered religious groups. Kirstin Innes offers the organiser a chance to respond
Anthony Schrag looks a bit stressed out when we meet. It’s been a big couple of weeks for the Gallery of Modern Art’s artist in residence, for reasons you may well have heard of. Made in God’s Image, a community outreach exhibition he organised to accompany GOMA’s social justice programme sh[OUT]: Contemporary art and human rights, has generated a storm of outrage. Even the Vatican has got involved, condemning the exhibition as ‘disgusting and offensive’.
‘Made in God’s Image is one of a few smaller outreach projects attached to the main exhibition. We worked with community groups to discuss ageing and sexuality, ethnic minorities and sexuality, and this one happens to look at faith and sexuality. We worked with LGBTI people of faith, to look at the ways in which they deal with any contradictions between those two areas of their lives, their religion and their sexuality. My job, as an artist, was to go and work with different individuals and groups to make art and explore those ideas.’
The work causing most offense, created by Metropolitan Community Church minister Jane Clarke, consisted simply of a Bible lying open with a pot of pens beside it. From here, the piece was in the hands of visitors to the gallery. Their comments, such as, ‘I am Bi, Female and Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this,’ and ‘this is all sexist pish, so disregard it all’ have offended religious groups, who have claimed that the text has been defaced; there have been pickets outside the gallery. Schrag feels
that, in the ensuing commotion and media hysteria, the intentions behind the works have been lost. ‘The instructions by the work said, “If you feel you’ve been excluded from the Bible, please feel free to find a way to write yourself back in.” And that perhaps was naive, but the artist, who made the work was aware of that. She felt that this might be some people’s first contact with a Bible for a very long time, and that the experience might plant some seeds of faith. She’s a minister; that’s a chance she was willing to take. She was aware that some people would be immature and write silly things, and felt that spoke of some people’s relationships to the Bible. She hoped that people would defend those comments, that that Bible would become a site of discussion, and it did. Many of the offensive comments were responded to in the margins by people defending their faith.’
He continues: ‘It was done with this understanding that there possibly would be controversy, but that this controversy was worth discussing, rather than sweeping under the table. ‘It’s a difficult subject to begin with. It’s going to be difficult to deal with them, surely they should be respected, and say let’s give them the space to have this discussion. And that’s what art does. It gives you a space where you can look at the difficult things and discuss the difficult topics.’
Made in God’s Image, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, until Sat 22 Aug.
✽✽ Medieval Capers at Mugdock Castle Mugdock Castle returns to the Dark Ages for a day, with battle re- enactments, weapons displays, historical characters, storytelling and more. Mugdock Castle, Sun 16 Aug. ✽✽ Made in God’s Image Exhibition causing controversy. See article, left. Gallery of Modern Art, until Sat 22 Aug. ✽✽ Chiew-Siah Tei A literary evening with the Malaysian author of the novel Little Hut of Leaping Fishes, where she will talk about the importance of the story to overseas Chinese people. Ricefield Gallery, Fri 14 Aug. ✽✽ Christopher Brookmyre The prolific Scottish crime writer talks about his latest novel Pandaemonium. Mitchell Theatre, Fri 14 Aug. ✽✽ Write Camera Action A series of workshops for film writers, directors and actors for development and feedback on the third Monday of every month. Register interest at writecameraaction@hotmail.co. uk. Observers are also welcome. CCA, Mon 17 Aug.
Check out the GreatOffers on page 4 13–20 Aug 2009 THE LIST 15