Dihdyuhpraytuhdaye??
If you didn't get that meme reference, that's on you. If you don't get the religious references in the work of mother-and-son artists Helga & Ägidius Vockenhuber after this review, that's on me.
Vockenhuber: Belonging
Seven grey fleshy chunks with long spikes lie arranged on a black circular platform like tools of an ancient ritual. The figures look misplaced underneath the grand, elegant ceiling of the limestone and marble cathedral of San Giorgio Maggiore. Just as if someone didn’t get the memo and showed up in a themed costume for a presidential gala.
Exhibiting contemporary art in churches is not new. Curators and artists have long discovered how a spiritual space adds that extra spice to already edgy art. Sculptor Helga Vockenhuber (Baby Boomer, Austrian) doesn’t simply abuse the cathedral as a polished scenery for her work. The exhibition stays in line with her interest in the core beliefs of world religions and the universal search for salvation. She presents a more elemental idea of faith against the backdrop of institutionalized, void religion – the ugly truth against beautiful lies.
Let’s return to the work at hand. The chunky figures form Christ’s crown of thorns worn to his execution. A tool of torture and humiliation came to mean power over death and a sacrifice of love. Their fleshy texture recalls the pierced body of Christ on the cross.
The Holy Drip
Inside the Monumental Sacristy, architect and photographer Ägidius Vockenhuber (Millenial, Austrian) gathered 49 wooden trunks in front of a painting depicting the presentation of Christ at the Temple (Luke 2:22-40). The pine trunks chaotically surround a taller cylindrical marble basin in the middle of the room. Like the basins at the entrance of churches, this one is filled with holy water.
It looks like an abstract version of the sermons at Lake Galilee, with crowds flocking to hear Christ (Luke 5:1-11), who is represented here by the marble vessel. Visitors are invited to dip their hands into the water, sit down, and contemplate. Basically, use the space created by Ägidius … as a church? Inside a church?
Neither am I convinced by his works in the corridor of the Abbey. His large, moody black-and-white photographs of forests and gloomy glades are very much Goth. But that’s pretty much it. In the wall text, the artist explains that the work is related to how newborns see the world only in shades of black, white, and gray, how “[c]olor does not originally belong to this world”. Compared to Helga’s pieces that are closely tied to deep theological reflection, his photographs feel like they belong exactly where they are hung. In the corridor. To be passed quickly. On the way to see more of Helga’s work.
Inside the sanctuary, a footlong bronze spike lies on the backlit altar. As a bone, tree branch, thorn, and nail, it sums up the story of the Bible: The bone taken from Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:22) and the creation of humans, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil in Paradise (Genesis 2:9), and Christ as the new sprout from a dead trunk (“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” Isaiah 11:1, ESV), and finally, Christ nailed to the cross with the crown of thorns (John 19:17-29). These imperfect, partly repulsive sculptures seem to be worlds apart from the aesthetic, dramatic interiors of the chapel.
Throwing shade?
I don’t know whether Helga is a church girl who go to church, but she definitely read her bible. Unlike Ägidius, unfortunately, she shows a deep understanding of theology. An understanding that is provocative: Faith is not about throwing money at extravagant, fancy buildings or expensive materials (we see you, Vatican). It is humble, just like the art she presents.
Test your bible trivia at Vockenhuber: Belonging until November 26, 2023, at Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore.
Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore
Isola di S.Giorgio Maggiore
30133 Venezia VE, Italy
Open from Tuesday until Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm
Free entry
abbazia@abbaziasangiorgio.it
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See you soon!
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic