Why Jesus could not have down syndrome, this artist wondered

So much anger, the angry letters, Scheldt telephonades: Jacques Frenken had never expected it. He had not intended his art at all. On the contrary. For him, Pop Art was a way to make the ecclesiastical messages up to date again. So, because Jesus had been a target two thousand years ago, he painted a crucifix as a shooting disc (Target1966). And by surrounding Sint Antonius with crazy compiled samples, he gave his visit again – an old religious theme, now with dolls on it.

Several Van Frenkens Vroom meant, but poorly understood images can be seen in OMG! Relipop In Museum KRONA, an exhibition about pop art and religion. Pop Art came up in the sixties, and responded enthusiastically to popular visual cultures – something that the ecclesiastical also belonged to. At the same time, that church had to contend with emptying and pop art as a PR offensive went too far. And Frenken noticed that.

He lived in Den Bosch and saw old statues of saints standing by the coarse dirt, she took them to the studio. Assemblies of Objets Trouvés Were common in that pop art time. So yes, then he cut off his head for new compositions at a Christian statue. It looks brutal on the film images in the museum, in which he talks surprised about the commotion. He wanted to make modern devotion images for Katholiek, to kneel for. Instead, an exhibition visitor took a shoe with stiletto heel, and threw it at an image. Mass, luckily.

It was about reaching and ecstasy – in itself also a religious fact, but something had to be broken for that

Museum Krona itself also seems to imply that relipop is an attack. At least, the opening hall is set up. From 1990 Sint Stephanus I. From Wim Delvoye: a football goal in its actual size with the saint in the middle-but, everything is made of stained glass. One goal and the saint lies in shards. In addition, a film by Niki de Saint Phalle plays. In 1961 she prepared paintings with or without religious theme as altarpieces to fire paint bullets on them. It was about finishing and ecstasy – in itself also a religious fact, but something had to be broken for that.

Desecration

That pop art desecrated, that was known: it was the current that the notion of High Art undermined. KRONA also shows that. That Monet once painted the Cathedral of Rouen with many atmospheric keys – pop artist Roy Lichtenstein did this. He also displayed that church with dots, but then a flat grid as from an enlarged photo (1969). Eduardo Paolozzi painted a Jesus Color by Numbersa coloring page. And Andy Warhol screen crowded an advertisement for a Christian statue, Only 9.98 dollars.

From the 1980s, desecration took place thanks to postmoderns such as Rob Scholte, with a grumpy Christ child as an enlarged magazine shift – religion was reduced to a picture world, something you buy in the store. Poor church.

All that loudness does not really fit with the museum. Museum Krona is hidden in peace in Uden in Brabant behind the monastery walls of the old Birgittinessenklooster, a still active order. In an old herb garden, field clocks, field sorrel and the five -part cheese herb grow. Inside, the Museum has medieval statues and a treasure room where reliquary holders and silver Gothic chalices light up as soon as you enter the space. In addition, it has been offering thoughtful exhibitions in which old and contemporary art becomes interconnected through spiritual themes. Often they are all kinds of religions, but pop art mainly had to have Christianity.

In the meantime, because of secularization, Christianity was so in crisis that Rome made a decision. Pope Johannes XXIII organized the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965: a change of course to make the church modern. The wild contact with people and Latin was replaced by allotment.

But pop art, that was a different kind of modern. Hans Truijen designed stained glass windows in 1968, with photo details that seem to have been cut out of a magazine or newspaper between the Gothic lead lines. But the church went for a sober modernity, sleek, white, somewhat far from pop art. Truijens Ramen: they stayed with a design.

Revelation of soup cans

At the same time, the church did have a long tradition of embracing the worldly. Take a look at Gothic church construction, full of worldly references. Or think of beer brewing, carnival. And still: how many Catholic chapels do not have plastic maria statues that you think: that is a very synthetic dress.

Because modernity is by no means clear. That also noticed the Californian non Corita. In 1962 she had seen Warhol’s soup cans, and experienced it as a revelation: so you could combine all worlds in art – the earthly and the heavenly. She was going to do that. She gave art lessons in the Order of The Immaculate Heart and went to pen print posters. Lyrics hurried with supermarket slogans and Bible texts, the Pope with the words’Let the Sun Shine‘ – Church of Musical, Who Cares.

She also moved into the public domain by organizing processions. Film images in Krona show a huge pop parade during Mary’s Day in 1964. Dozens of nuns and seculars, with flowers in the hair, wear colorful boxes full of slogans-Friendship. Love. Relax. SALE – towards a liturgical service, also just on the street.

She was a sensation. In 1966 the La Times hair out Woman of the yearin 1967 she was like the modern nun on the cover of Newsweek. Tough photos of her in habit appeared, busy with screen printing. In the meantime, her art became more and more political, she spoke firmly against the Vietnam War. And in itself this matched the Second Vatican Council, which had promised to offer room for secular values ​​around straight and peace.

But not everyone saw it. That started when she had compared to the ‘juiciest Tomato or All‘(Another tomato hangs in Krona). Los Angeles’ archbishop, Cardinal James McINTYRE, did not pull that. Criticism stopped, she got a burnout, in 1970 she left order. Her influence remained. Her fans included filmmaker Hitchcock, musician John Cage and designers Ray and Charles Eames. But because she was such an unusual figure – a nun – she lacked the art history booklets for a long time. Fortunately, Kent has since been rehabilitated and also gets attention in Krona.

Quite complicated, that relipop. Frenken stopped his assemblies in 1969, through all criticism. Kent left the order. And Warhol may have been misunderstood. After his death he turned out to have been a pious Catholic. What does that mean? Was it really just about the outside, as that pop art befelled? Or did he search God in the advertisement for a plastic Jesus?

Warhol picked up several religious themes. In graphic contours, he had, more than a hundred times, Last Supper from Leonardo da Vinci simplified. That unleashed a sampling culture that still continues. Popey, Southpark, the TV series of Dr. House, whole football teams: they all sometimes copied Da Vinci’s composition. Often as a joke, sometimes socially critical. Because why is Jesus always a white man? And so there were versions in which he is black, a woman, or someone with Down syndrome.

Because this painting is so famous, the joke works: it Last Supper If it is desecrated here, and that is the venom of pop art – perhaps not meant as an attack, it will turn out. These parodies fill half a room, with a video run of Supper variants that float over the internet after meme. Endlessly multiplied, as Jesus did with the fish and the loaves. In this way, the Second Vatican Council has harvested success in this, although the holiness was quite rid of it. In this exhibition, God is everywhere, in flashier shape than he himself would have created.

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