Good Friday returns to MOCRA

Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) is currently presenting Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art. This is an encore showing: Good Friday was originally presented in Spring 2009 as the second of two exhibitions celebrating MOCRA’s 15th anniversary. The exhibition includes works by over 30 artists of diverse backgrounds who have used the events of the day of Jesus’ death as inspiration for their own reflections on such themes as faith, suffering, loss, compassion, and unconditional love. The selected works are drawn from the MOCRA collection and works on long-term loan, and employ a wide range of media from painting and sculpture to fiber arts.

Sr. Helen David Brancato. "Crucifixion - Haiti," 1997. MOCRA collection.

It may come as a bit of a surprise—it did to me—that Good Friday was one of our best received exhibitions ever, given that the exhibition represented a bit of risk-taking on MOCRA’s part. We are committed to an interfaith exploration of how contemporary artists engage the religious and spiritual dimensions in their work. Although our track record of over 35 exhibitions demonstrates how ample our vision has been, it would be easy for people unfamiliar with us to dismiss a show with such an overtly Christian title as being sectarian. Quite to the contrary.

For instance, at least four works in Good Friday specifically treat the theme of “Pietà” (Mary holding her dead son after he is brought down from the cross). They include a large wooden cage, an abstract marble sculpture, and an homage to a famous 15th-century work, by artists from Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish backgrounds respectively, and a frenetic etching by Salvador Dalí. Taken together, these works represent a wide spectrum of understandings and interpretations of an age-old theme.

Furthermore, we experimented with ways of inviting people to approach the work from a standpoint of contemplation, or even prayer. Is it  appropriate to encourage this sort of thing in a museum? This was a topic taken up in the MOCRA conference “Art and the Religious Imagination” in March 2009. Dr. Gerald Bolas, former Director of the Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill, discussed the challenges and sensitivities for a state university art museum in displaying art and artifacts associated with a particular religious tradition, but also the opportunities for community engagement. The role of various sorts of museums as stewards and interpreters of sacred materials is also explored in the book Stewards of the Sacred, edited by Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alison Edwards.

The situation at MOCRA is a little different. First, we are a museum at a private Catholic university, and an interfaith outlook is built into our mission statement. Furthermore, Good Friday does not include liturgical objects or objects tied to particular communities. Still, how do we help people feel welcome to seek a faith experience, without putting any undue pressure on those who simply want to look at the art? One response was through a booklet of meditations on the art of Good Friday which is offered to visitors for self-guided reflection. Another was the development of group visits, facilitated by MOCRA staff, which incorporate discussion of the art from a spiritual or faith perspective as well as an art appreciation perspective.

I’ve discussed both of these approaches in posts on the MOCRA blog (here and here). In one of those posts I raised some questions, which I have refined a bit since then:

• Does the idea of approaching art this way leave you feeling ambivalent, or even opposed?
• Could (or should) something like this take place in a “public” art museum? Why or why not?
• Do MOCRA’s particular mission and setting on a private Catholic university campus give us latitude to do things other institutions can’t safely attempt?
• Good Friday has a clearly Christian point of departure, and the groups I described were coming from a standpoint of Christian faith. Is this sort of exhibition and approach to art transferable to art from other faith traditions?

We invite you to visit MOCRA and the Good Friday exhibition, and consider these questions for yourself.

Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art continues through April 25. On March 28, MOCRA Director Terrence E. Dempsey gives a lecture titled “The Wounded Body of Christ and the Modern Social Conscience.” The lecture is free and open to the public. Find more information by clicking here.