Cathedral of St. John the Divine Spring 2013 : Page 1

Spring 2013 Volume 13 Number 60 1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street New York, NY 10025 (212) 316-7540 stjohndivine.org at the Cathedral The Cathedral and the Museum for African Art Partner to Present A Major Exhibition of Works by Jane Alexander 2013 Spring J SPOTLIGHT ON CATHEDRAL ARTS ane Alexander’s sculptures—human-animal hybrids, denizens of dream and nightmare, evocative of everything from Hieronymus Bosch to ancient Egyptian art, African sculpture, and surrealist film— will visit the Cathedral this spring. The Museum for African Art (africanart.org) is presenting Jane Alexander: Surveys (from the Cape of Good Hope) , a traveling exhibition of works by one of the most important South African artists working today. The exhibition is the first major North American survey of the artist’s tableaux, sculptures, and photomontages, and contains work spanning 15 years. The exhibition opens at the Cathedral on April 18 and runs through July 29. Alexander’s work comments on the bestial conditions in which many people are forced to live in her native South Africa and around the world, as well as the bestial quality of the oppressors. Yet even using the word “bestial” in this way is telling; animals are frequent metaphors for violence, cruelty, sexuality, the irrational: human attributes we both fear and fetishize. As well as representing the corporeal side of human nature, animal bodies speak of the much wider and wilder fecundity of creation—so many shapes and arrangements of parts, so many methods of feeding and reproduction, such inventive attunement to environment. Jane Alexander taps into this rich vein of association, finding in the fluidity of animal form a flexible metaphor for the ambiguities of social relations and our own complex ambivalence towards the “Other.” Jane Alexander was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and works primarily in sculpture and photomontage. She is widely known for her mid-1980’s sculpture, Butcher Boys— three nude male figures with horns and snouts (but no mouths or ears) sitting on a bench as if waiting for a bus or an interrogation. Butcher Boys is a groundbreaking artwork from a pivotal moment in South African history, and is one of the most popular contemporary pieces in the collection of the South African National Gallery. In a recent interview with Art in America , Alexander said, “My work has always been a response to the social environment I find myself in. Much of what I consider while producing my work is globally pervasive, such as segregation, economic polarities, trade, migration, discrimination, conflict, faith.” Alexander’s art raises issues that are integral to the mission of the Cathedral, and we are pleased to have the chance to display her work. Her specific focus on the animal as commentary on, or metaphor for, the human, is also something Cathedral audiences are familiar with. From Ralph Lee’s puppets, the St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals, and the 2011 antelope-skull installation The Council of Pronghorn to The Inferno’s often bestial demons, the Cathedral has an affinity for both real and symbolic animals. These creatures serve as spiritual guides and oppressed beings, representative of that which we know intimately, but can only articulate through ritual and art. The exhibition is adapted to suit each venue to which it travels. Alexander, guest curator Pep Subirós, the Museum for African Art staff, and the Cathedral have worked together to integrate the artwork into the environment and architecture. Alexander’s intent is for the exhibition, as it moves, to be site-specific (through addition, subtraction and placement of pieces). The Cathedral is certain her sculptures will take on new and mysterious life within these walls, producing aesthetic and psychological effects you will need to experience for yourself. Alexander’s solo exhibitions include J ane Alexander: On Being Human (2009) at the Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral, Survey (2009) at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, Jane Alexander (2000) at Gasworks in London, and Bom Boys and Lucky Girls (1999) at the University of Cape Town, Irma Stern Museum. Her artwork has been exhibited widely in international group exhibitions including the Venice, Havana, Gothenburg, Tirana, Bamako, São Paulo, Singapore, and Dakar biennials. She has also participated in such group exhibitions as Africa Remix (2006) exhibited in Europe, Japan, and South Africa; Apartheid: The South African Mirror (2007) in Spain; Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art (2004) in the USA; and The Short Century (2002) in Germany and the USA. She currently teaches at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, edited by Pep Subirós with contributions by Jane Alexander, Ashraf Jamal, Kobena Mercer, Simon Njami, Lize van Robbroeck, and Pep Subirós. Selected excerpts by Lucy Alexander, Okwui Enwezor, Ingo Gildenhard, Sander Gilman, Ashraf Jamal, Julie McGee, The Sacrifices of God are a Troubled Spirit , 2004 John Peffer, Ivor Powell, and Michael Sadgrove. The catalogue will be available for purchase at the Cathedral’s Pop-Up shop. WHAT’S INSIDE Spotlight on Cathedral Arts What Do You Think Looking Back Looking Ahead Dean's Meditation Spring Events American Poets Corner New Look for Nightwatch The Cathedral Invites You to Take a Pause Welcome Julia Whitworth Medieval Arts Cathedral Garden Conservancy A Hundred Years Ago La Ruta In Memoriam

The Cathedral And The Museum For African Art Partner To Present A Major Exhibition Of Works

Jane Alexander

SPOTLIGHT ON CATHEDRAL ARTS Jane Alexander’s sculptures—human-animal hybrids, denizens of dream and nightmare, evocative of everything from Hieronymus Bosch to ancient Egyptian art, African sculpture, and surrealist film— will visit the Cathedral this spring. The Museum for African Art (africanart.org) is presenting Jane Alexander: Surveys (from the Cape of Good Hope), a traveling exhibition of works by one of the most important South African artists working today. The exhibition is the first major North American survey of the artist’s tableaux, sculptures, and photomontages, and contains work spanning 15 years. The exhibition opens at the Cathedral on April 18 and runs through July 29. Alexander’s work comments on the bestial conditions in which many people are forced to live in her native South Africa and around the world, as well as the bestial quality of the oppressors. Yet even using the word “bestial” in this way is telling; animals are frequent metaphors for violence, cruelty, sexuality, the irrational: human attributes we both fear and fetishize. As well as representing the corporeal side of human nature, animal bodies speak of the much wider and wilder fecundity of creation—so many shapes and arrangements of parts, so many methods of feeding and reproduction, such inventive attunement to environment. Jane Alexander taps into this rich vein of association, finding in the fluidity of animal form a flexible metaphor for the ambiguities of social relations and our own complex ambivalence towards the “Other.” Jane Alexander was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and works primarily in sculpture and photomontage. She is widely known for her mid-1980’s sculpture, Butcher Boys— three nude male figures with horns and snouts (but no mouths or ears) sitting on a bench as if waiting for a bus or an interrogation. Butcher Boys is a groundbreaking artwork from a pivotal moment in South African history, and is one of the most popular contemporary pieces in the collection of the South African National Gallery. In a recent interview with Art in America, Alexander said, “My work has always been a response to the social environment I find myself in. Much of what I consider while producing my work is globally pervasive, such as segregation, economic polarities, trade, migration, discrimination, conflict, faith.” Alexander’s art raises issues that are integral to the mission of the Cathedral, and we are pleased to have the chance to display her work. Her specific focus on the animal as commentary on, or metaphor for, the human, is also something Cathedral audiences are familiar with. From Ralph Lee’s puppets, the St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals, and the 2011 antelopeskull installation The Council of Pronghorn to The Inferno’s often bestial demons, the Cathedral has an affinity for both real and symbolic animals. These creatures serve as spiritual guides and oppressed beings, representative of that which we know intimately, but can only articulate through ritual and art. The exhibition is adapted to suit each venue to which it travels. Alexander, guest curator Pep Subirós, the Museum for African Art staff, and the Cathedral have worked together to integrate the artwork into the environment and architecture. Alexander’s intent is for the exhibition, as it moves, to be site-specific (through addition, subtraction and placement of pieces). The Cathedral is certain her sculptures will take on new and mysterious life within these walls, producing aesthetic and psychological effects you will need to experience for yourself. Alexander’s solo exhibitions include Jane Alexander: On Being Human (2009) at the Galilee Chapel of Durham Cathedral, Survey (2009) at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, Jane Alexander (2000) at Gasworks in London, and Bom Boys and Lucky Girls (1999) at the University of Cape Town, Irma Stern Museum. Her artwork has been exhibited widely in international group exhibitions including the Venice, Havana, Gothenburg, Tirana, Bamako, São Paulo, Singapore, and Dakar biennials. She has also participated in such group exhibitions as Africa Remix (2006) exhibited in Europe, Japan, and South Africa; Apartheid: The South African Mirror (2007) in Spain; Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art (2004) in the USA; and The Short Century (2002) in Germany and the USA. She currently teaches at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, edited by Pep Subirós with contributions by Jane Alexander, Ashraf Jamal, Kobena Mercer, Simon Njami, Lize van Robbroeck, and Pep Subirós. Selected excerpts by Lucy Alexander, Okwui Enwezor, Ingo Gildenhard, Sander Gilman, Ashraf Jamal, Julie McGee, John Peffer, Ivor Powell, and Michael Sadgrove. The catalogue will be available for purchase at the Cathedral’s Pop-Up shop.

A Hundred Years Ago At The Cathedral: 1913

1913 was a great year for architecture in New York City. Grand Central Terminal opened after 10 years of construction. The Woolworth Building opened. Further uptown, the Cathedral’s Synod Hall was finished just in time for the September arrival of delegates to the Episcopal General Convention. Cathedral House, Ogilvie House and The Cathedral School building were also completed that year. It was also a pivotal time for art. Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring had its premiere. Rabindranath Tagore became the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for poetry. And the epochal Armory show, formally known as The International Exhibition of Modern Art, introducing Cezanne, Picasso, Duchamp and other avant-garde European artists to an American audience, opened in New York City. At the Cathedral, a couple of months Later, an audience of nearly 1000 attended a special service for workers in the arts. According to an April 28, 1913 New York Times account, The Reverend Dr. Howard C. Robbins preached, “Modesty is a beautiful and engaging trait in man and nation. We are not often charged with an excess of it. And it is right that youth should recognize its limitations and profit by the experience of age. But modesty is different from undue dependence…to introduce a transatlantic culture is a wrong done to the genius of the land that gave us birth. Let the artist be free to roam at will, to ransack Europe in his quest for inspiration, but let him add to the freedom the profoundest loyalties of home and fireside... What matter if there be crudities of form and expression? They shall be American crudities. We shall love them and learn to better them.” He went on to say, “One hears sometimes that art is the handmaid of theology. I hate that phrase, for it misleads. Theology has no handmaid. Art, science and theology are loving sisters engaged in similar endeavors.” In succeeding decades, artists followed his prescription very well (though probably not as a result of this sermon), creating a vibrant and world famous and occasionally crude American art. In that year, women marched for suffrage in the United States and Europe. Gandhi began his “Great March” to gain Indian rights in South Africa. The Anti-Defamation league was founded. And the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, in session at Synod Hall, October, 1913, voted to strike the words “Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics” from the Third Good Friday Collects of The Book of Common Prayer. The edited section of the prayer reads: “O, Merciful God. Who has made all men and hatest nothing that Thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live, have mercy upon us all who know thee not.” The offending words came after the phrase “have mercy upon us all.”

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