{"id":1052,"date":"2020-04-09T11:37:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T10:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2026-06-29T12:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:18:09","slug":"stations-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/stations-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"<a52>Stations 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stations 2020 is a development of <a href=\"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/stations-of-the-cross\/\">Stations 2017<\/a>, for such a time as this. Video works by Mark Dean, including a <a href=\"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/stations-2020\/#station15\">new 15th Station<\/a> with dancers from Lizzi Kew Ross &amp; Co rehearsing Stations of the Resurrection, and a virtual Paschal candle by Phil Baines, accompany readings remotely recorded on Maundy Thursday via Zoom (the social distancing medium of the moment) by friends of Arts Chaplaincy Projects, including NHS &amp; Royal Mail workers on the front line, and those isolating and working from home, including artists, educators, therapists and priests. Updated commentaries by Lucy Newman Cleeve accompany each Station.\u00a0With grateful thanks to the participants &#8211; you are all stars\u2728<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/sony-cross-2020-crop.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The First Station: Jesus is condemned to death<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406008993?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Augusta Coca, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mixcloud.com\/augustacoca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">musician<\/a><br \/>\nChloe Borthwick, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCjFK5VXGwogARYSSANyqHxQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">performer<\/a> and teaching assistant<br \/>\nJanaki Anderson, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/janakuli\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drummer<\/a> and producer<br \/>\nAnna Dean, <a href=\"https:\/\/annalilydean.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">performance artist<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Reading from the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John<\/p>\n<p>When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, \u2018Are you the King of the Jews?\u2019 He answered him, \u2018You say so.\u2019 Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, \u2018Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.\u2019 But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.<\/p>\n<p>Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, \u2018We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.\u2019 Then Pilate asked him, \u2018Are you the king of the Jews?\u2019 He answered, \u2018You say so.\u2019 Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, \u2018I find no basis for an accusation against this man.\u2019 But they were insistent and said, \u2018He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate\u2019s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, \u2018What accusation do you bring against this man?\u2019 They answered, \u2018If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.\u2019 Pilate said to them, \u2018Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.\u2019 The Jews replied, \u2018We are not permitted to put anyone to death.\u2019 (This was to fulfil what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.) Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, \u2018Are you the King of the Jews?\u2019 Jesus answered, \u2018Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?\u2019 Pilate replied, \u2018I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?\u2019 Jesus answered, \u2018My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.\u2019 Pilate asked him, \u2018So you are a king?\u2019 Jesus answered, \u2018You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.\u2019 Pilate asked him, \u2018What is truth?\u2019 After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, \u2018I find no case against him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?\u2019 They shouted in reply, \u2018Not this man, but Barabbas!\u2019 Now Barabbas was a bandit.<\/p>\n<p>So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, \u2018I am innocent of this man\u2019s blood; see to it yourselves.\u2019 Then the people as a whole answered, \u2018His blood be on us and on our children!\u2019 So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.<\/p>\n<p>Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, \u2018Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?\u2019 For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, \u2018Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?\u2019 They shouted back, \u2018Crucify him!\u2019 Pilate asked them, \u2018Why, what evil has he done?\u2019 But they shouted all the more, \u2018Crucify him!\u2019 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.<\/p>\n<p>Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, \u2018You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.\u2019 Then they all shouted out together, \u2018Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!\u2019 (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, \u2018Crucify, crucify him!\u2019 A third time he said to them, \u2018Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.\u2019 But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.<\/p>\n<p>Pilate went out again and said to them, \u2018Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.\u2019 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, \u2018Here is the man!\u2019 When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, \u2018Crucify him! Crucify him!\u2019 Pilate said to them, \u2018Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.\u2019 The Jews answered him, \u2018We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.\u2019 Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, \u2018Where are you from?\u2019 But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, \u2018Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?\u2019 Jesus answered him, \u2018You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.\u2019 From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, \u2018If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.\u2019 When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge\u2019s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, \u2018Here is your King!\u2019 They cried out, \u2018Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!\u2019 Pilate asked them, \u2018Shall I crucify your King?\u2019 The chief priests answered, \u2018We have no king but the emperor.\u2019 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.<\/p>\n<p>Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor\u2019s headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, \u2018Hail, King of the Jews!\u2019 They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.<\/p>\n<p>Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor\u2019s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, \u2018Hail, King of the Jews!\u2019 They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.<\/p>\n<p>Now the men who were holding Jesus began to mock him and beat him; they also blindfolded him and kept asking him, \u2018Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?\u2019 They kept heaping many other insults on him.<\/p>\n<p>Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him, saying, \u2018Hail, King of the Jews!\u2019 and striking him on the face.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Royal Road<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/181553988?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-royal-road\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A clip of Julie Andrews as the novice Maria from the opening scenes of <i>The Sound of Music <\/i>(1965) is layered over an extract from <i>Psycho <\/i>(1960). The looped clip of Andrews taking a single breath is so short that she appears as a still, solitary figure set against a background of clear blue sky, her chin lifted and head raised as she stares straight ahead. Her hand brushes against her skirt as it flaps gently in the wind; her chest rises and lips press shut as she breathes in; she blinks. The blue of the sky and the innocence suggested by Maria\u2019s religious vocation is in contrast with the footage from <i>Psycho<\/i>, which cuts in and out to reveal the view through a car windscreen driving along a highway at nightfall. To begin with, it is daytime and the road is clear, but with each subsequent fade in, the on-coming traffic gets heavier and vehicle headlamps are switched on as the light disappears. Rain starts to fall, obscuring the view through the windscreen so that only the glare of the lights can be seen, before the windscreen wipers are switched on. They swing backwards and forwards, dividing time like the arm of a metronome in sync with the soundtrack which has been slowly building in intensity from the upbeat and harmonic opening bars to the urgent strumming and distorted guitar in the middle section of Ingenting\u2019s \u2018Re:re:re\u2019. The action of the wipers is directly aligned with Andrews\u2019 figure, slicing through her body in a way suggestive of the Grim Reaper\u2019s scythe, and in this context indicative of the violent death to which Jesus is condemned. Towards the end of the work, the car arrives at Bates Motel. This is where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is murdered by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) after he has assumed the identity of his own mother Norma. The film is based on Robert Bloch\u2019s novel of the same name and both the novel and the film explain that Norman suffered years of emotional abuse by his mother, which accounts for him becoming \u2018psycho\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews has long been considered an icon of the LGBT community and film theorists have drawn attention to her subversive portrayal of female roles (the nun, the nanny) normally seen as passive. Hitchcock\u2019s treatment of women, both on screen and off-screen is contested. Throughout the <i>Stations of the Cross<\/i>, Dean\u2019s portrayal of women is significant: the majority of the figures represented are female and he returns frequently to the archetype of nun, suffering screen siren, abandoned lover or child, and to themes of gender and sexual identity. He acknowledges that he does not seek to make images of God (although if he did, then why not as female or transgender?), but to represent personhood; that is, the experience of being a person in a world where there is a God. Rather than explicitly identifying Maria with the person of Jesus, this work could be understood as an acknowledgment of the suffering experienced by the LGBT community at the hands of the \u2018mother\u2019 church or by women at the hands of men. In the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Domestic Abuse helpline has seen a 25% increase in calls and online requests for help. Maria\u2019s bib-fronted pinafore also alludes to the traditional uniform worn by nurses, calling to mind the sacrifice of inadequately protected NHS workers daily risking their lives in treating patients with the virus. These fragile identities are visually empowered through their re-framing and re-presentation, and their juxtaposition with Jesus\u2019 suffering and death points to the redemptive power of the cross as well as the presence of God in the midst of human suffering.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Second Station: Jesus carries his cross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406008816?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Laura Moffatt, Director,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artandchristianity.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Art &amp; Christianity<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A reading from The Symbolic Christology of Paul Tillich, by H.D. McDonald:<\/p>\n<p>It is a \u2026 characteristic of the symbol that it should participate in the reality which it represents. A true religious symbol is one which not only points to the divine but participates in the power of the divine to which it points. In some sense it radiates the power and meaning for which it stands. Tillich shows particular anxiety to labour the point by a constant reiteration. Symbols cannot be created at will. In this respect they are to be distinguished from signs. Symbols are, so to speak, socially created; they are due to the \u2018unconscious-conscious reaction of the group\u2019. The individual, it is declared, can devise signs for his own ends, but the symbol is given; and it carries with it the \u2018acceptability\u2019 of the group. The sign is therefore arbitrary, possessing no \u2018innate power\u2019, and having no \u2018necessary character\u2019. Symbols have the power of opening up dimensions of reality which would otherwise remain obscured or closed. \u2018Religious symbols mediate ultimate reality through things, persons, events which because of their mediating functions receive the quality of \u201choly\u201d\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Symbols have the power to integrate or disintegrate either individuals or groups. They can create or destroy. The religious symbol in particular has all the characteristics of representative symbols. They are essentially \u2018figurative\u2019, and they must be \u2018perceptible\u2019 in the sense that in the symbol the intrinsically invisible, ideal, or transcendent is represented, and is thus given \u2018objectivity\u2019. But the distinguishing feature of religious symbols is to be found in the fact \u2018that they are a representation of that which is unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere; they point to the reality implied in the religious act, to what concerns us ultimately\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Sparrow<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/162762733?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-sparrow\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Original footage (shot by the artist) of a bird trapped within an airport lobby is set against the Irish folk ballad \u2018As I Roved Out\u2019<i>, <\/i>recorded by Planxty in 1975. As Christy Moore starts singing, the bird launches into flight, but is restricted by the large glass windows of the atrium. The astragals form a cross. The bird drops to the floor and hops forward to rest at the base of this \u2018cross\u2019, all the time shifting in and out of focus. The sense of confinement is in contrast with the space beyond where aeroplanes are assumed to be taking off and landing. Such imagery finds new resonances in this current season of lockdown, where entire populations are self-isolating and aircraft fleet are grounded, leaving families separated across borders and continents.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The song lyrics speak of the regrets of a man who jilts his true love in favour of \u201cthe lassie with the land\u201d. This may be understood as a reference to Judas\u2019 betrayal of Jesus, or to Simon Peter denying Jesus three times the night after his arrest. Either way, the viewer is placed in the position of the betrayer: in the song, the singer looks over and spies his true love \u201cunder yon willow tree\u201d, in this context an oblique reference to Jesus carrying his cross; the slipping focus of the camera and the exhaustion of the bird a metaphor for his failing physical strength. The image also reverberates with Jesus\u2019 words to his disciples, \u2018Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father\u2019s care\u2026 So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.\u2019 In this passage in Matthew\u2019s Gospel, he also predicts, \u2018Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child.\u2019 The song ends with the words, \u201cIn hopes that you and I will meet again.\u201d It is a hope with which many at this time can identify.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Third Station: Jesus falls the first time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406008583?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Marie Kan, Head of <a href=\"http:\/\/arts.ac.uk\/chac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UAL Counselling, Health Advice and Chaplaincy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A reading from the Book of Acts:<\/p>\n<p>Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, \u2018Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.\u2019 (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, \u2018Go over to this chariot and join it.\u2019 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, \u2018Do you understand what you are reading?\u2019 He replied, \u2018How can I, unless someone guides me?\u2019 And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:<br \/>\n\u2018Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,<br \/>\nand like a lamb silent before its shearer,<br \/>\nso he does not open his mouth.<br \/>\nIn his humiliation justice was denied him.<br \/>\nWho can describe his generation?<br \/>\nFor his life is taken away from the earth.\u2019<br \/>\nThe eunuch asked Philip, \u2018About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?\u2019 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, \u2018Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?\u2019 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The End of Alice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/180421192?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"312\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-end-of-alice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The end of Wim Wenders\u2019 <i>Alice in the Cities (1974)<\/i> \u2014 comprising a close up shot of a young girl (Yella Rottl\u00e4nder) inside a train carriage, an ascending aerial landscape view, and a scrolling credit sequence \u2014 is cut in three, timeshifted, looped and superimposed on itself. When the credits reach the end, the whole scene is repeated with the footage reversed. The film\u2019s soundtrack theme is similarly timeshifted and layered. In the film, the child Alice has been abandoned by her mother; in this context perhaps a reference to Jesus\u2019 own feelings of abandonment by God the Father. The slowed down footage of Alice blinking makes her appear drowsy, as if she is falling asleep or more literally \u2018falling\u2019. She becomes an archetype for the experiences of children during lockdown, viewing the outside world through a window, enduring boredom and repetition and unable to escape the imposition of screens and digital media. She is a still point within a chaotic world and through the final establishing shot we are given a privileged view of seeing this world from a distance. The rolling credits reveal who the director is \u2014 who is \u2018in control\u2019 \u2014 and the work could perhaps be understood as presenting the death of Jesus within the framework of a broader divine plan. The inclusion of a film\u2019s closing credit sequence is a device that Dean returns to in each of the three <i>Stations <\/i>in which Jesus falls, used each time to different effect.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Fourth Station: Jesus meets his mother<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406026652?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>David Mollin, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davidmollin.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">artist<\/a> &amp; UAL London College of Communication MA Sound Art lecturer<\/p>\n<p>A reading from an interview with Jean-Louis Raymond:<\/p>\n<p>I want to say straight away how pleased I am to have the opportunity to discuss Gina Pane\u2019s lesser known side, that of teacher. When I myself started teaching as a young man, in 1979, and discovered there was a famous artist among my\u00a0colleagues, I knew that working with her would be of immense significance to me. She taught the painting class. She placed the concept of painting at the centre of reflection and theory building. She encouraged most of the students to paint. This is not the case today.<br \/>\n\u2026<br \/>\nShe was seen as an artist very much in the classical tradition of painting. In her classes she asserted the mystery of what has been thought in order to restore a depth of view worthy of human dignity. At the same time she wanted her students to learn a symbolic order articulating formal intentions with emotional content. She went far beyond strictly educational assignments in an attempt to express the necessity of creativity. I would say that with her it was a question of inspiration.<br \/>\n\u2026<br \/>\nI am using this term as a contrast to the present situation among first year students. Mystery is a word they do not know. In their minds, events and facts are governed by principles of reality, which makes them simple.<br \/>\n\u2026<br \/>\nShe was exceptionally good at listening to people. Most students in Le Mans come from a rural or working-class background. Gina Pane was genuinely attentive to her students\u2019 words or allusions that, in her view, revealed desires taking shape. She thought that their imaginative power stemmed from their social environment. Strangely enough, the distance she kept between herself and other people was in inverse proportion to her ability to focus on a developing mind unfamiliar with the dialectic of art. She succeeded in finding a common language even with those who were most incapable of verbal formulation. This is a clear indication of the trust she placed in others, of her expectations. She hoped the school would offer some of them the possibility of being reborn, whatever their background, whatever their intellectual capacities. Actually, she established an insurmountable distance in her relationships with people but she provoked in order to stimulate. She was provocative. Students who had been put to the test either passed or failed definitively. The weakest, the least motivated could choose to quit. Yet these confrontations were extenuated by other teachers who might decide to stand up for these students or to protect them. She used to interact with students in a very personal way. She used to make appointments to meet them on a one-to-one basis but very formally. And she always addressed them in a formal way. From an ethical point of view her attitude set an example. Everybody knew everybody\u2019s role. This mutual relationship rooted in a set of codes and rules created a \u2018place for possibility\u2019. I am certain she was highly emotional, that was the reason why she did not want things to be uncontrolled. Very soon I came to appreciate this attitude. To me it seemed to be protecting something in her innermost being that should not be reached too easily.<br \/>\n\u2026<br \/>\nThe idea that drove her on was that you also teach what you don\u2019t know. It seems paradoxical at first, yet it encompasses doubt and curiosity regarding change. It gave her teaching an essential depth, but it also introduced into her work energies that could not be satisfied with the results. The way she opposed conventional ideas and deeply anchored habits in the end brought about a real dynamism. Her often-demonstrated capacity to resist became legendary. One day Alexandre Bonnier, Art Education Inspector, asked us \u2018Have you ever heard Gina Pane say \u201cyes\u201d?\u2019 What teaching represented in her deepest being, I couldn\u2019t say, I was never close enough to her to exchange ideas on this point. We held each other in high esteem and the most remarkable discussions we had focused on the sacred.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My Mum (V2 Sensitive)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/130925444?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"390\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/my-mum-v2-sensitive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The image is an extract from <i>The Birds <\/i>(1963), depicting Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) visiting Bodega Bay to warn the school they may be in danger. The treatment of the figure, including the amplification of small gestures, is similar to the earlier Stations \u2014 a device perhaps mimicking and subverting Hitchock\u2019s own voyeuristic framing and filming of women. Dean has replaced all of the footage of the birds with cut-away shots of a black screen, indicating that the menace here is not the birds.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The soundtrack combines \u2018Berlin\u2019<i> <\/i>by Lou Reed (1976) with the introduction to \u2018Memory of a Free Festival\u2019<i> <\/i>by David Bowie (1969) mixed with \u2018Sensitive\u2019<i> <\/i>by the Field Mice (1989). The Field Mice lyrics, \u201cWe all need to feel safe, then that\u2019s taken away, sometimes I want to return\u201d, suggest a child\u2019s yearning to return to the safety of its mother\u2019s arms. Later in the track they sing, \u201cYou do risk being crucified, crucified by those you are unlike,\u201d in this context clearly intended as a reference to Jesus\u2019 death. The layering of the different musical tracks produces a discordant affect of heightened tension and foreboding. This is reinforced by Hitchcock\u2019s (or is it Dean\u2019s?) editing: after each cut away shot, the camera moves in closer to Hedren\u2019s face, augmenting her rising panic.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>My Mum (V2-Sensitive) <\/i>had a life before <i>Stations of the Cross<\/i>, and precedes many of the other works, making us question its inclusion here. Is Dean commenting on his own relationship to his late mother? Is there something in what we know of Hedren\u2019s off-screen treatment and alleged abuse by Hitchcock that is significant? Writing in <i>Artforum<\/i>, Rachel Withers comments on Dean\u2019s appropriation of an image of Tippi Hedren in an earlier work, observing that she \u201cbecomes a surrogate for the artist in a nuanced and moving moment of crossgender identification.\u201d This particular work may invite us to imagine ourselves in the role of Jesus and of Mary, in the child separated from its mother, and in the mother fearful for the loss of her child. In the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, such fears and separations are commonplace, as is the yearning to return to a time before it all began.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Fifth Station:\u00a0 Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406026547?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>John Dean, postman &amp; Communication Workers Union rep, Truro<\/p>\n<p>A reading from a commentary by James E. Kiefer:<\/p>\n<p>As Jesus was carrying his cross out of Jerusalem to the place of execution, a man named Simon of Cyrene was coming in, and the soldiers compelled him to carry the cross of Jesus. (The Greek word Angareuo, here used for &#8216;compel&#8217;, is a technical one, perhaps better translated &#8216;impress&#8217;, and referring to the legal right of a soldier to require a provincial to carry his gear one mile for him. The word occurs in the New Testament only here and in\u00a0the Sermon on the Mount: \u2018if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;\u00a0and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;\u00a0and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile\u2019.) Mark calls Simon &#8216;the father of Alexander and Rufus&#8217; without further explanation, apparently taking it for granted that his readers would all know who Rufus and Alexander are. The Christian writer Papias (died around 130) tells us that Mark originally wrote his Gospel for the Christian community in Rome. This suggests that Alexander and Rufus were well known to, and probably part of, the Christian congregation in Rome. Very possibly their father Simon had himself become a Christian, though this must remain conjecture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Golden Rehearsal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/168313917?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/golden-rehearsal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The theme of abandoned child is picked up again in <i>Golden Rehearsal<\/i>, which appropriates a clip from John Cassavetes film <i>Gloria <\/i>(1980), in which a young boy\u2019s family is killed by the mob. Their neighbour Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian and the pair go on the run in New York. In this extract, Gloria is shown carrying the small boy on her shoulder as he sleeps \u2014 a direct allusion to Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus\u2019 Cross. The footage is looped and layered multiple times, so that it becomes increasingly illegible.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The soundtrack is from the Beatles\u2019 <i>Get Back <\/i>sessions recorded live at Twickenham Studios in 1969, shortly before the band broke up. Members of the band can be heard joking and laughing while Paul McCartney rehearses his new composition \u2018Golden Slumbers\u2019, in which the lines \u201cOnce there was a way to get back homeward\u201d and \u201cI will sing a lullaby\u201d assume great poignancy. At the very end, McCartney sings the first line of \u2018Carry That Weight\u2019: \u201cBoy, you gotta carry that weight a long time\u201d.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Images of death, abandonment, fear and loss combined with protectiveness, tenderness and support run through this work. The lyrics suggest sleep (or death?) as a way to get back homeward (to heaven?), and reference both the physical weight of the cross as well as the weight of the sins that Jesus bears on the cross. The camera stays zoomed in on Gloria\u2019s face, so that she appears almost still, although it is clear that she is actually moving nervously through a busy cityscape. Similarly, the audio track focuses on McCartney\u2019s playing, even through it is clear that there is lots of activity going on around him. Once again, Dean seems to be drawing attention to a still point in the turning world.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406026518?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Patricia Ellis, Course Leader, MA Fine Art, UAL Chelsea College of Arts<\/p>\n<p>A reading from The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain:<\/p>\n<p>We were standing in a narrow street, by the Tower of Antonio. \u201cOn these stones that are crumbling away,\u201d the guide said, \u201cthe Saviour sat and rested before taking up the cross. This is the beginning of the Sorrowful Way, or the Way of Grief.\u201d The party took note of the sacred spot, and moved on. We passed under the \u201cEcce Homo Arch,\u201d and saw the very window from which Pilate\u2019s wife warned her husband to have nothing to do with the persecution of the Just Man. This window is in an excellent state of preservation, considering its great age. They showed us where Jesus rested the second time, and where the mob refused to give him up, and said, \u201cLet his blood be upon our heads, and upon our children\u2019s children forever.\u201d The French Catholics are building a church on this spot, and with their usual veneration for historical relics, are incorporating into the new such scraps of ancient walls as they have found there. Further on, we saw the spot where the fainting Saviour fell under the weight of his cross. A great granite column of some ancient temple lay there at the time, and the heavy cross struck it such a blow that it broke in two in the middle. Such was the guide\u2019s story when he halted us before the broken column.<\/p>\n<p>We crossed a street, and came presently to the former residence of St. Veronica. When the Saviour passed there, she came out, full of womanly compassion, and spoke pitying words to him, undaunted by the hootings and the threatenings of the mob, and wiped the perspiration from his face with her handkerchief. We had heard so much of St. Veronica, and seen her picture by so many masters, that it was like meeting an old friend unexpectedly to come upon her ancient home in Jerusalem. The strangest thing about the incident that has made her name so famous, is, that when she wiped the perspiration away, the print of the Saviour\u2019s face remained upon the handkerchief, a perfect portrait, and so remains unto this day. We knew this, because we saw this handkerchief in a cathedral in Paris, in another in Spain, and in two others in Italy. In the Milan cathedral it costs five francs to see it, and at St. Peter\u2019s, at Rome, it is almost impossible to see it at any price. No tradition is so amply verified as this of St. Veronica and her handkerchief.<\/p>\n<p>At the next corner we saw a deep indention in the hard stone masonry of the corner of a house, but might have gone heedlessly by it but that the guide said it was made by the elbow of the Saviour, who stumbled here and fell. Presently we came to just such another indention in a stone wall. The guide said the Saviour fell here, also, and made this depression with his elbow. There were other places where the Lord fell, and others where he rested; but one of the most curious landmarks of ancient history we found on this morning walk through the crooked lanes that lead toward Calvary, was a certain stone built into a house\u2014a stone that was so seamed and scarred that it bore a sort of grotesque resemblance to the human face. The projections that answered for cheeks were worn smooth by the passionate kisses of generations of pilgrims from distant lands. We asked \u201cWhy?\u201d The guide said it was because this was one of \u201cthe very stones of Jerusalem\u201d that Christ mentioned when he was reproved for permitting the people to cry \u201cHosannah!\u201d when he made his memorable entry into the city upon an ass. One of the pilgrims said, \u201cBut there is no evidence that the stones did cry out\u2014Christ said that if the people stopped from shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do it.\u201d The guide was perfectly serene. He said, calmly, \u201cThis is one of the stones that would have cried out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Veil of Veronica (offset Halo)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/130925442?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-veil-of-veronica-offset-halo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This work appropriates a short extract from <i>This Gun for Hire <\/i>(1942) directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Veronica Lake. Dean has slowed down, overlaid and offset two identical layers of the same scene that portrays Veronica Lake\u2019s character performing a magic trick with a large fan made of feathers. The soundtrack to the work is provided by the 1997 single \u2018Halo\u2019<i> <\/i>by the band Texas. Dean has EQd the sound to remove the vocals (although their echo remains), the guitars and the drums, thereby bringing the harmonic undertones of the orchestration to the surface. The resulting work has a mesmeric quality that is heavy with allusion. At times, the feathered fan produces a veil that obscures the figure of Veronica Lake, but which also connotes angelic wings. The pseudonymous title of the work alludes to the 1st century Saint Veronica who, according to legend, offered Jesus her veil to wipe his forehead. Jesus accepted her offering and, after using the veil, handed it back to Veronica with the image of his face miraculously impressed upon it. In some medieval traditions, effigies of the face of Christ are referred to as \u2018Veronicas\u2019.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>These religious allusions are extended by the title and lyrics (albeit removed) of the audio track \u2018Halo\u2019, which also refer to the destructive lure of super-stardom and seem to echo the life of Veronica Lake, who was burnt by her own success and struggled with mental illness and alcoholism after the decline of her acting career. She veils or removes herself from the frame, as if to leave or transcend the external world, perhaps another oblique prefiguring of Jesus\u2019 death or a comment on its efficacy. The faith of Saint Veronica is juxtaposed with the uncertainty and demise of the worldly Veronica, maybe a tacit acknowledgment of our human longing for proof of something higher than our own being in which to believe. And the image of the face of Christ left imprinted on the veil of Veronica questions the proofs upon which we base our knowledge of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Within these strange times, themes of immanence and transcendence, faith and doubt are amplified.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406026196?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rotimi Akinsete, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mombooks.com\/book\/this-book-could-help\/?imprint=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">author<\/a>, therapist, &amp; UAL Associate Dean of Students<\/p>\n<p>A reading of Bonnie \u2018Prince\u2019 Billy\u2019s \u2018I See A Darkness\u2019, by Will Oldham<\/p>\n<p>Well you\u2019re my friend<br \/>\n(It\u2019s what you told me)<br \/>\nAnd can you see<br \/>\n(What\u2019s inside of me)<br \/>\nMany times<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve been out drinking<br \/>\nAnd many times<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve shared our thoughts<br \/>\nBut did you ever, ever notice<br \/>\nThe kind of thoughts I got<br \/>\nWell you know I have a love<br \/>\nA love for everyone I know<br \/>\nAnd you know I have a drive<br \/>\nTo live I won\u2019t let go<br \/>\nBut can you see its opposition<br \/>\nComes a-rising up sometimes<br \/>\nThat it\u2019s dreadful anti position<br \/>\nComes blacking in my mind<\/p>\n<p>And that I see a darkness<br \/>\nAnd that I see a darkness<br \/>\nAnd that I see a darkness<br \/>\nAnd that I see a darkness<br \/>\nAnd did you know how much I love you<br \/>\nIs a hope that somehow you<br \/>\nCan save me from this darkness<\/p>\n<p>Well I hope that someday, buddy<br \/>\nWe have peace in our lives<br \/>\nTogether or apart<br \/>\nAlone or with our wives<br \/>\nThat we can stop our whoring<br \/>\nAnd pull the smiles inside<br \/>\nAnd light it up forever<br \/>\nAnd never go to sleep<br \/>\nMy best unbeaten brother<br \/>\nThis isn\u2019t all I see<\/p>\n<p>Oh no I see a darkness<br \/>\nOh no I see a darkness<br \/>\nOh no I see a darkness<br \/>\nOh no I see a darkness<br \/>\nAnd did you know how much I love you<br \/>\nIs a hope that somehow you<br \/>\nCan save me from this darkness<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Minor Place<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/179508079?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/a-minor-place\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This work is constructed from a series of asynchronous loops from <i>Wendy and Lucy <\/i>by Kelly Reichardt, in which Michelle Williams (also known for her portrayal of the ultimate tragic screen siren, Marilyn Monroe) depicts a young woman whose life is progressively derailed through ill-fortune and dire economic decisions, resulting in separation from her beloved dog Lucy. She is shown sitting still and huddled, with her head covered so that her appearance becomes that of an androgynous homeless beggar. In our present situation, her figure invites identification with the poor and vulnerable who are disproportionally affected by the impact of COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>A moving camera shot through a forest is superimposed over the top of this, perhaps symbolic of the unconscious realm or impending threat, and the film credits \u2018directed by Kelly Reichardt\u2019 appear fleetingly in reverse. The drone like music, remixed from the film\u2019s Will Oldham soundtrack, augments the darkness in the work and provides its title, which is borrowed from another Oldham song \u2018A Minor Place\u2019 (1999). Again, Dean uses the film\u2019s credits as a device to reflect on Jesus falling. We are still given the privilege of knowing who is in control, but with the credits reversed, it is less clear. There is a sense in which perspective (of the victim and the viewer) is being lost as the Good Friday narrative draws closer to its climax and Jesus falls the second time.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406026033?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Laura Jacobs, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laurajacobsart.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">artist<\/a> &amp; UAL Central Saint Martins alumna<\/p>\n<p>A reading from the Jewish Enyclopedia of 1906:<\/p>\n<p>[Emanuel Deutsch\u2019s] famous essay on the Talmud [the basis for all codes of Jewish law] in the \u201cQuarterly Review\u201d for October 1867\u2026 created probably a greater sensation than any other review article in England dealing with a purely literary subject, and caused that number of the \u201cQuarterly\u201d to be repeatedly reprinted. The article itself was translated into several languages, and contributed to create an interest in the Talmud wherever the essay was read. Though there was little that was new in the facts adduced\u2014the literary history being derived from Wolf and the wise and witty sayings from Dukes\u2014yet the skill with which the pertinent topics were grouped, the brilliancy of the style, and the underlying enthusiasm of the writer made it a striking performance. Some of its effect was due to the implied suggestion that the key to the life of the founder of Christianity was to be sought for in the surrounding ideas in Palestine. The renewed attention given to the Talmud in Christian circles, at any rate in England, was undoubtedly due to the article. The ambition of Deutsch\u2019s life to produce a more exhaustive work on the Talmud was thus shadowed forth; but the failure of his health compelled him to abandon the project.<\/p>\n<p>A reading from Emanuel Deutsch\u2019s essay on The Talmud:<\/p>\n<p>[In Jewish law,] The care taken of human life was extreme indeed. The judges of capital offences had to fast all day, nor was the sentence executed on the day of the verdict, but it was once more subjected to scrutiny by the Sanhedrin the next day. Even to the last some favourable circumstance that might turn the scale in the prisoner\u2019s favour was looked for. The place of execution was at some distance from the Court, in order that time might be given to a witness or the accused himself for naming any fresh fact in his favour. A man was stationed at the entrance to the Court, with a flag in his hand, and at some distance another man, on horseback, was stationed, in order to stop the execution instantly if any favourable circumstance should still come to light. The culprit himself was allowed to stop four or five times, and to be brought back before the judges, if he had still something to urge in his defence. Before him marched a herald, crying, \u201cThe man N. N., son of N. N., is being led to execution for having committed such and such a crime ; such and such are the witnesses against him; whosoever knows aught to his favour, let him come and proclaim it.\u201d Ten yards from the place of execution they said to him, \u201cConfess thy sins; every one who confesses has part in the world to come ; for thus it is written of Achan, to whom Joshua said, My son, give now glory to the God of Israel.\u201d If he \u201ccould not\u201d offer any formal confession, he need only say, \u201cMay my death be a redemption for all my sins.\u201d To the last the culprit was supported by marks of profound and awful sympathy. The ladies of Jerusalem formed a society which provided a beverage of mixed myrrh and vinegar, that, like an opiate, benumbed the man when he was being carried to execution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Daughters of Jerusalem<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/167562729?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/daughters-of-jerusalem\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This work appropriates footage from the closing sequence of the Israeli film <i>Karov La Bayit (Close To Home) <\/i>(2005) directed by Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hager. The film focuses on two 18-year-old Israeli girls who are thrown together as they are assigned to a patrol in Jerusalem as part of their compulsory military service. Their job is to stop Palestinian passers-by, to ask for their identity cards, and to write down their details on special forms. The sampled clip follows an altercation that has gone wrong, resulting in a Palestinian man being beaten up and possibly killed. The women are shown riding two-up on a motorbike, with the camera cropped in close on their faces and the footage slowed down. The speed of the original footage is apparent from the blurred landscape moving behind them creating the impression of still figures locked in a bewildering and disorienting world. The women\u2019s faces look, in the same instant, guilty, defiant and numb as they start to realise they have become witnesses to a murder.<\/p>\n<p>The image is in dialogue with the soundtrack \u2014 a remixed sample of \u2018Lovely Rita\u2019<i> <\/i>by the Beatles in which the words \u201cLovely Rita meter maid\u201d are repeated over and over again. The original lyric continues \u201cIn her cap she looked much older, and a bag across her shoulder, made her look like a little like a military man\u201d, although the song may also be understood here as a reference to St Rita, also featured in the 13th Station.<\/p>\n<p>The compassionate view of the two young women is complicated by their status as border guards in a contested territory \u2014 \u00a0bringing to mind the borders that have been locked in response to the pandemic, and the possible future introduction of immunity passports. Historically, the \u2018daughters of Jerusalem\u2019 may be identified with a sorority of women who offered narcotic drinks to condemned men as an act of charity to ease the pain of their deaths. It was this \u2018wine mixed with myrrh (or gall)\u2019 that Jesus refused to drink on his way to be crucified.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Ninth Station:\u00a0 Jesus falls the third time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/405977763?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Erika Winstone, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.erikawinstone.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">artist<\/a>, Fine Art lecturer, &amp; Camberwell College of Arts alumna<\/p>\n<p>A reading from \u2018Through the Eyes of Angels, Cowboys, and Christians: A tribute to Wim Wenders, and an appreciation of his films\u2019, by Jeffrey Overstreet<\/p>\n<p>When you watch a film by Wim Wenders, you\u2019re asked to consider the world through starkly different perspectives. Each of his narratives focus on people whose views are limited, and who need to be reconciled into a more complete understanding.\u00a0In his beloved, Cannes-award-winning masterpiece \u2014 Wings of Desire (1987) \u2014 Wenders follows angels on their daily beat through the troubled streets of Berlin before the wall was torn down. There, an angel named Damiel (Bruno Ganz) wanders and listens to the needy thoughts of the despairing citizens, and he marvels at the faith of wide-eyed children. Damiel longs to know the joys of sensory experience. And when he encounters a human being \u2014 a beautiful circus trapeze performer named Marion (Solveig Dommartin) who longs for communion with a kindred spirit \u2014 he finds the provocation to \u201ctake the plunge\u201d into human form and pursue her. As her guardian angel, he offers almost imperceptible spiritual comfort. As his muse, Marion lures him to embrace the mystery of human experience, so that even the simple joy of holding a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning inspires him to reverence and wonder, revealing the sacred in the ordinary\u2026 By tuning our attention to the perspective of angels, viewers often find renewed appreciation for the incarnational nature of creation, and greater apprehension of God\u2019s love in the highs and lows of daily life. Those rewards come from attentive viewing, but also through patient filmmaking, and Wenders has learned to be watchful and open to surprises in the course of a project. In a recent issue of MovieMaker, he volunteered a list of 50 tips for filmmakers. One in particular stands out: \u201cFilms can reveal the invisible, but you have to be willing to let it show.\u201d I asked Wenders what he meant by that during my recent interview with him for Christianity Today. \u201cThis is one of the amazing achievements of film,\u201d he assured me, \u201cthat they can reveal something that you can\u2019t actually see. When I started out as a painter, I strictly believed in the visible, and that the visible was it. And in the course of making movies, I realized that something I hadn\u2019t actually seen in front of my camera was then there in the movie.\u201d This was especially true during the filming of Wings of Desire. While Wenders was, at the time, distancing himself from his religious upbringing, he found that filming from the perspective of imaginary angels caused him to discover and capture wondrous and meaningful things that he had never planned. \u201cI never really thought that a film could deal with anything metaphysical\u2026. And when we finished it, I thought, \u2018How much help can I possibly get?\u2019 It felt like I had almost made the film completely unconsciously, and that the angels that I had sort of \u2018called\u2019 had actually been there to help me.\u201d The audience\u2019s enthusiasm for Wings of Desire around the world amazed Wenders, and the experience of making the film and observing its influence played a part in renewing his Christian faith. \u201cThere was no explanation for the powerful impact that these figures had on audiences,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWhat I had taken for a metaphor had, sort of miraculously, materialized. So I came to terms with the fact that the invisible was powerfully working in movies. I just had to let it happen. You can\u2019t make it happen. I don\u2019t think you can consciously evoke that. At least, I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>In Freundschaft<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/180427822?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/in-freundschaft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>In Freundschaft <\/i>or <i>\u2018In friendship\u2019 <\/i>combines sound from the beginning and image from the end of Wim Wenders\u2019 film <i>The American Friend <\/i>(1977), based on two novels by Patricia Highsmith, <i>Ripley Underground <\/i>and <i>Ripley\u2019s Game. <\/i>In the film, picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz) believes that he is critically ill, and is coerced into becoming a hitman in order to provide for his wife and child. The audio from the beginning of the film depicts a conversation between Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) and a painter discussing a forged art deal. The footage at the end shows Zimmerman lying dead in a car next to his wife Marianne (Liza Kreuzer). The scene is watched over by the (supposedly dead) painter who walks away from the camera as the end credits start to roll. The image and sound are looped, layered and time-shifted three times in reference to Jesus falling, becoming increasingly incoherent and disconcerting in the process. Whereas in previous works the credits have provided some sense of order, perhaps even implying a divine plan, here they become illegible through their repetition.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is perhaps the darkest and certainly the most opaque of Dean\u2019s <i>Stations of the Cross. <\/i>The audio begins with the sound of a train whistling and a man singing to himself, \u201cI&#8217;ve been doing some low down travelling, God knows I have\u201d with tense music playing in the background. Distorted snippets of the conversation including, \u201cI think this is serious\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you\u201d and references to dirty-money art deals pop out, amplifying the sense of threat. The interwoven themes of money and death reinforce the extent to which a health crisis always inevitably becomes a financial crisis, and the role in which \u2018thirty pieces of silver\u2019 played in the death of Jesus.<\/p>\n<p><i>In Freundschaft <\/i>refers back to two earlier works included in Dean\u2019s first solo show at City Racing in 1996: <i>Nothing To Fear (The American Friend +-12) <\/i>and <i>I\u2019m Confused (The American Friend +-50%)<\/i>. It is also the title of a 1977 work by Stockhausen, in which the four parameters of pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre are all determined by a musical formula, the basic form of which is presented at the outset of the work. In returning to <i>The American Friend <\/i>as source material, Dean continues to experiment with its formal parameters in ways informed by serial and minimal composers and the borrowed title of the work seems to flag this up.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406025982?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Suzanne Smith, Respiratory Nurse, Wirral University Teaching Hospital, Arrowe Park<\/p>\n<p>A reading from Psalm 22<\/p>\n<p>I am poured out like water,<br \/>\nand all my bones are out of joint;<br \/>\nmy heart is like wax;<br \/>\nit is melted within my breast;<br \/>\nmy mouth is dried up like a potsherd,<br \/>\nand my tongue sticks to my jaws;<br \/>\nyou lay me in the dust of death.<\/p>\n<p>For dogs are all around me;<br \/>\na company of evildoers encircles me.<br \/>\nMy hands and feet have shrivelled;<br \/>\nI can count all my bones.<br \/>\nThey stare and gloat over me;<br \/>\nthey divide my clothes among themselves,<br \/>\nand for my clothing they cast lots.<\/p>\n<p><strong>God Is Not Mocked<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/167783419?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"390\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/god-is-not-mocked\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This work appropriates the opening sequence from Kenneth Anger\u2019s 6-minute film <i>Puce Moment <\/i>(1949), which begins with the film credits before cutting to a close up shot of vividly coloured flapper dresses being danced off a clothes rack to music.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the context of the <i>Stations<\/i>, the removal of the dresses from the rack is an allusion to Jesus being stripped of his garments. Dean has looped and layered the footage, then overlaid it with a red-blue filter in reference to the title of Anger\u2019s film and perhaps also to the purple robe and \u2018royal\u2019 crown of thorns placed on Jesus at this point in the narrative. The soundtrack appropriates a lyric from Neil Young\u2019s \u2018Cowgirl in the Sand\u2019<i>, <\/i>\u201cPurple words on a grey background\u201d, which is repeated over and over and then echoed and reechoed, pointing attention back to Anger\u2019s title and to the opening credits, in particular the pun in his name. \u2018Anger\u2019 could be understood as a comment on the attitude of the perpetrators who strip Jesus or, along with Dean\u2019s title, <i>God Is Not Mocked (<\/i>a reference to Galatians 6:7)<i>, <\/i>a riposte to Kenneth Anger\u2019s own occult appropriation of Judeo-Christian imagery in his later works.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406025763?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Cecily Cleeve<\/p>\n<p>A reading from Psalm 22<\/p>\n<p>My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?<br \/>\nWhy are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?<br \/>\nO my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;<br \/>\nand by night, but find no rest.<\/p>\n<p>Yet you are holy,<br \/>\nenthroned on the praises of Israel.<br \/>\nIn you our ancestors trusted;<br \/>\nthey trusted, and you delivered them.<br \/>\nTo you they cried, and were saved;<br \/>\nin you they trusted, and were not put to shame.<\/p>\n<p>But I am a worm, and not human;<br \/>\nscorned by others, and despised by the people.<br \/>\nAll who see me mock at me;<br \/>\nthey make mouths at me, they shake their heads;<br \/>\n\u2018Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver\u2014<br \/>\nlet him rescue the one in whom he delights!\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Yet it was you who took me from the womb;<br \/>\nyou kept me safe on my mother\u2019s breast.<br \/>\nOn you I was cast from my birth,<br \/>\nand since my mother bore me you have been my God.<br \/>\nDo not be far from me,<br \/>\nfor trouble is near<br \/>\nand there is no one to help.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/127915522?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This title references the last words Jesus spoke on the cross before he died, themselves appropriated from Psalm 22. At this moment in the narrative, Dean resists incorporating a figure, to signal his avoidance of representing the death of God. Instead, he appropriates the title sequence of <i>Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie) <\/i>aka <i>Slow Motion <\/i>aka <i>Every Man For Himself <\/i>(1980), by Jean Luc Godard. The puns in the text \u2018Un film compose par Jean Luc Godard, Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie), Copyright 1979 Sonimage\u2019 are explicit, referencing God in the director\u2019s name and the image of the Son in the copyright notice, which is flagrantly flouted.<\/p>\n<p>The credits roll over a vast expanse of cloud filled sky, suggestive of Jesus\u2019 view from the cross, and a visual reference back to the composition of the first <i>Station, <\/i>indicating that Jesus\u2019 death sentence has now been executed. The soundtrack is a short looped extract from \u2018Love Don\u2019t Live Here Anymore\u2019<i> <\/i>by Rose Royce, which includes a rising and falling string section layered over a repetitive synthetic beat, producing in this context the effect of a nail being hammered into wood.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Twelth Station: Jesus dies on the cross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406025704?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>William Whitcombe, <a href=\"https:\/\/artschaplaincy.net\/chaplains\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UAL Lead Chaplain<\/a> &amp; Priest in Ordinary to HM The Queen<\/p>\n<p>A reading from the Gospel according to Luke:<\/p>\n<p>It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun\u2019s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, \u2018Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.\u2019 Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, \u2018Certainly this man was innocent.\u2019 And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Christmas Tree<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/213426242?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-christmas-tree\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jesus\u2019 death is perhaps the hardest point in the narrative to depict visually. Again, Dean resists figuration and offers up a silent video loop of footage from the start of a drag race. Modern drag races are started electronically by a system known as a \u2018Christmas tree\u2019, consisting of a column of seven lights for each lane, as well as a set of light beams across the track itself. Dean has overlaid and offset the same clip using a difference filter, so that where the two images are the same, the image appears dark; only the variation between the two layers is illuminated revealing a changing light-sequence of the Christmas tree and the speeding cars. The Christmas tree introduces a deliberate pun for the Cross of Christ, placing it at the centre of the action, and the moments of darkness created by the difference filter allude to the &#8216;darkness that came over the whole land&#8217; when Jesus died.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas in most of the preceding video <i>Stations<\/i>, Dean has used footage shot through a moving camera that remains focused on a still central figure, in this work he inverts the construct, making use of footage from a locked camera shot of a subject moving at speed. Is Dean suggesting that Jesus\u2019 death inverts the world-order as we know it; that the \u2018still point\u2019 which, until recently was acted upon by the \u2018turning-world\u2019, now undergoes a change in state and starts to exert its own influence upon that same world?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406031336?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Jatun Risba, <a href=\"https:\/\/jatunrisba.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">artist<\/a> &amp; UAL Central Saint Martins MA Art &amp; Science student<\/p>\n<p>A reading from Yves Klein\u2019s prayer accompanying his ex-voto to St Rita of Cascia:<\/p>\n<p>1961, Feb. Y.K.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 The BLUE, the GOLD, the PINK, the IMMATERIAL, the VOID, the architecture of the air, the urban planning of the air, the air-conditioning of the great geographic spaces for a return to a human life in nature, in the Paradisiac state of legend. The three \ufb01ne gold ingots are the product of the sale of the \ufb01rst 4 ZONES OF IMMATERIAL PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 To Almighty God Father in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ and in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and in the name of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Virgin Mary. Through St. Rita da Cascia, under her care and protection, all my in\ufb01nite gratitude. Thank you. Y.K.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 St. Rita da Cascia, please intercede with Almighty God the Father that he may always grant me in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and the name of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Virgin Mary the favour of inhabiting my works and that may become ever more beautiful, and also the favour that I may continually and regularly discover ever new and lovelier things in art even if alas I may not always be worthy to be a tool for the construction and creation of Great Beauty. Please let everything that comes out of me be Beautiful. Amen, Y.K.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Under the earthly care of St. Rita da Cascia: the Pictorial Sensibility, the monochromes, the I.K.B.s, the sponge sculptures, the immaterial, the static anthropometrical imprints, positive, negative and in movement, the shrouds, the Fountains of Fire, of water and Fire \u2013 the architecture of the air, the urbanism of the air, the air-conditioning of geographic spaces thus transformed into constant Gardens of Eden rediscovered on the surface of our globe \u2013 the Void.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 The theatre of the Void \u2013 all the particular variations in connection with my work \u2013 the Cosmogonies \u2013 my Blue sky \u2013 all my theories in general \u2013 May my enemies become my friends, and if that is impossible, may nothing which they might attempt againstme ever be of any avail or ever affect me in any way whatever \u2013 Make me, and all my works, totally invulnerable. Amen.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 May all my works at Glesenkirchen always be Beautiful, more and more beautiful, and let them be recognized as such more and more and as quickly as possible. May the Fountain of Fire and walls of Fire, be executed by me in the Opera square at Gelsenkirchen without delay \u2013 May my Krefeld Exhibition be the greatest success of the century and be recognized by all.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 St. Rita of Cascia, Saint of impossible and desperate causes, thanks be to you for all powerful, decisive and marvellous help which you have granted me so far \u2013 I thank you with all my heart. Even if I am not personally worthy to receive it grant me aid again and always in my art and always protect everything that I have created so that it may, despite me, be of Great Beauty for ever. Y.K.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Bearer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/166206138?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/the-bearer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this work, Dean superimposes a photograph of Sister Andreina, Mother Superior at the Augustinian Convent of Saint Rita of Cascia, over footage from Leni Riefenstahl\u2019s Nazi propaganda film, <i>Olympia <\/i>(1938). Sister Andreina is shown holding an ex-voto made by Yves Klein that was left at the monastery during a pilgrimage to Cascia. Saint Rita is known as the patron saint of lost causes and was a favourite object of Klein\u2019s devotion and ritualistic interest.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The footage from <i>Olympia <\/i>depicts athletes diving from a springboard with arms outstretched, generating a direct visual allusion to Klein\u2019s <i>Leap into the Void <\/i>photograph, and to the crucifixion. A progression of pink, blue and gold filters are applied to the video, in reference to the pigments Klein placed in his ex-voto, and also corresponding to the red and amber colours of the Christmas Tree lights in the preceding work. This visual correspondence, taken together with the fact that <i>The Christmas Tree <\/i>and <i>The Bearer <\/i>are the only two silent <i>Stations<\/i>, suggests that they are to be considered together. If <i>The Christmas Tree <\/i>suggests a change in world order achieved through the crucifixion, then a microcosm of this transformation is revealed in the events that followed the making of Klein\u2019s <i>Leap into the Void <\/i>photograph. In a strange coincidence, the house outside Paris that he leapt from in making this work was later demolished to make way for a church dedicated to Saint Rita. An action performed \u2018in the order of signs\u2019 is completed through the transformation of the physical world order.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Fourteenth Station:\u00a0 Jesus is laid in the tomb<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/406031582?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rylie Goodchild, artist &amp; UAL Central Saint Martins BA Fine Art student<\/p>\n<p>A Reading from John Richardson\u2019s eulogy for Andy Warhol, given on the occasion of his memorial service at St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in New York City, April 1, 1987<\/p>\n<p>Besides celebrating Andy Warhol as the quintessential artist of his time and place \u2013 the artist who held the most revealing mirror up to his generation \u2013\u00a0 I\u2019d like to recall a side of his character that he hid from all but his closest friends: his spiritual side. Those of you who knew him in circumstances that were the antithesis of spiritual may be surprised that such a side existed. But exist it did, and it\u2019s the key to the artist\u2019s psyche. Never forget that Andy was born into a fervently Catholic family and brought up in the fervently Catholic Ruska Dolina, the Ruthenian section of Pittsburgh. As a youth, he was withdrawn and reclusive, devout and celibate; and beneath the disingenuous public mask that is how he at the heart remained. Thanks largely to the example of his adored mother, Julia, Andy never lost the habit of going to mass more often than was obligatory. As fellow parishioners will remember, he made a point of dropping in on his local church, St. Vincent Ferrer, several days a week until shortly before he died. Although Andy was perceived \u2013 with some justice \u2013 as a passive observer who never imposed his beliefs on other people, he could on occasion be an effective proselytizer. To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing a nephew\u2019s studies for the priesthood. And as you have doubtless read on your mass cards, he regularly helped out at a shelter serving meals to the homeless and the hungry. Trust Andy to have kept these activities very, very dark. The knowledge of this secret piety inevitably changes our perception of an artist who fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, glamor, and that he was cool to the point of callousness. Never take Andy at face value. The callous observer was in fact a recording angel. And Andy\u2019s detachment \u2013 the distance he established between the world and himself \u2013 was above all a matter of innocence and of art. Isn\u2019t an artist usually obliged to step back from things? In his impregnable innocence and humility Andy always struck me as a <em>yurodstvo<\/em> \u2013 one of those saintly simpletons who haunt Russian fiction and Slavic villages, such as Mikova in Ruthenia, whence the Warhols stemmed. Hence his peculiar, passive power over people; his ability to remain uncorrupted, no matter what activities he chose to film, tape, or scrutinize. The saintly simpleton side likewise explains Andy\u2019s ever-increasing obsession with folklore and mysticism. He became more and more like a medieval alchemist searching \u2013 not so much for the philosopher\u2019s stone as for the elixir of youth. If in the sixties some of the hangers-on at The Factory were hell-bent on destroying themselves, Andy was not to blame. He did what he could to help, but nothing in the world was going to deter those lemmings from their fate. In any case Andy was not cut out to be his brother\u2019s keeper. That would hardly have been compatible with the existent detachment which was his special gift. However, Andy did feel compassion, and he did, in his Prince Myshkin way, save many of his entourage from burnout. Though ever in his thoughts, Andy\u2019s religion didn\u2019t surface in his work until two or three Christmases ago, when he embarked on his series of Last Suppers, many of them inspired by a cheap mock \u2013 up of Leonardo\u2019s masterpiece he bought on Times Square. Andy\u2019s use of a pop concept to energize sacred subjects constitutes a major breakthrough in religious art. He even managed to give a slogan like \u201cJesus Saves\u201d an uncanny new urgency. And how awesomely prophetic is Andy\u2019s painting \u2013 one of his very last \u2013 which announces: \u201cHeaven and Hell are just one breath away!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cartoon Burial<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/161940517?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/cartoon-burial\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In <i>Cartoon Burial<\/i>, Dean layers Raphael\u2019s study for the <i>Pala Baglione <\/i>(also known as <i>The Deposition <\/i>or <i>The Entombment<\/i>) over a Googlemaps image of Jerusalem. For the first time, the work is explicitly located in a real person, in a specific place, at a precise moment in history. The soundtrack is provided by \u2018Come Down To Us\u2019<i> <\/i>by South London sound-collagist, Burial.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The image is originally unclear. A close up of human limbs is faintly discernible, which becomes clearer as the drawing gradually descends within the frame. The audio track begins with the sample of a woman\u2019s voice saying, \u201cExcuse me, I\u2019m lost\u201d and then builds through layer upon layer of multi-textured samples, including voice snippets repeating phrases such as \u201cYou are not alone\u201d and, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to step into the unknown\u201d. The initial illegibility of the image becomes clearer as the work progresses as if to answer the vocal snippets asking, \u201cWho are you? Why did you come to me?\u201d In some sections, the track sounds almost like contemporary worship music.<\/p>\n<p>The Burial track ends with an extract from a speech by transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski: \u201cWithout examples, without models I began to believe voices in my head, that I am a freak, that I am broken, that there is something wrong with me, that I will never be lovable. Years later, I find the courage to admit that I am transgender, and that does not mean that I am unlovable\u2026 This world that we imagine in this room might be used to gain access to other rooms, other worlds, previously unimaginable.\u201d Its inclusion here could be understood as a political statement addressing current debates within the church over the role of gay clergy, and its treatment of the LGBT community, or a simple statement of inclusion addressed to those \u2018in this room\u2019 \u2014 that is, the viewers of the <i>Stations of the Cross, <\/i>watching online, alone and together.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a name=\"station15\"><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>The Fifteenth Station: Jesus rises from death<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-content\/uploads\/Phil-Baine-Striggio-Candle-1040.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Phil Baines, designer &amp; UAL Central Saint Martins Professor of Typography<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;This is only the second year since 1986 that I haven\u2019t been able to design and print a <a href=\"https:\/\/ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk\/id\/eprint\/13222\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paschal candle design<\/a>. The last time (2005) I was ill; this time the college was closed and there are no church services. This year\u2019s candle would have been letterpress set and printed, and something like this: the first two lines from Alessandro Striggio\u2019s motet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FCI0ZSlJlgg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ecce Beatam Lucem<\/a> of 1561 (Behold the blessed light; behold the everlasting goodness), prompted by UAL Chaplain Mark Dean, and the required phrases Alpha, Omega, and 2020. The required cross would have been made solely by the incense \u2018pins\u2019. The arrangement of the words follow the courses of bells 1, 4, and 6 during the ringing of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=moWBZT_-bLk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Grandsire Minor<\/a>.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here Comes The Sony (Rehearsal)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/404087450?autoplay=0&amp;loop=0&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"293\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/here-comes-the-sony-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">about<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this new fifteenth station, footage of dancers from Lizzi Kew Ross &amp; Co. in an early rehearsal for <i>Stations of the Resurrection<\/i> is gradually overlaid with twelve rotating discs, each one produced by filming through the back of a translucent Sony lens cap, so that the logo remains visible in reverse. With the introduction of each new disc, another layer of looped sound is added. The track is fleetingly recognisable as the guitar riff from the opening bars to \u2018Here Comes the Sun\u2019<i> <\/i>by the Beatles, although the original has been progressively extended so no two loops are the same duration. The discs rotate at different speeds, in sync to the soundtrack, changing hue as they cycle through the colour spectrum. As the music builds, the particular melody of \u2018Here Comes the Sun\u2019<i> <\/i>is obscured, although never quite lost, as the sounds merge to create the effect of a peal of Easter bells. The twelve discs correspond to Jesus\u2019 resurrection appearances in the New Testament and the sampled music from \u2018Here Comes the Sun\u2019 is a deliberate pun referencing the coming of The Son, which is further reinforced by the retention of the reversed Sony logo.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The first fourteen Stations contemplate the path that Jesus walked to Calvary on the day of his crucifixion. The fifteenth station has moved forwards in time three days to Jesus\u2019 resurrection. A version of this work was first installed under the dome of St Paul\u2019s Cathedral during Eastertide 2017, when it was realised as a twelve-monitor video and sound installation titled <i>Here Comes the Sony:<\/i> <i>Stations of the Resurrection,<\/i> and accompanied by a performance of <i>Being Here<\/i> by Lizzi Kew Ross &amp; Co. The movement material focused on the repeated withdrawal and reconnection of the dancers to create a physical metaphor of presence and absence, connection and loss. In this rehearsal except, each dancer is carried or supported by the others in turn. They fold and unfold around each other. It is not clear who is acting on whom. They come together to form tableaux which are visually reminiscent of K\u00e4the Kollwitz\u2019 drawings and sculptures. Human bodies melt together, limbs draped over limbs, in the act of protecting, comforting and carrying each other. It is not clear where one body starts and another ends or whether it is one body or many that is being implied.<\/p>\n<p>Watching this movement material again, in a season when touch is prohibited, delivers a poignant reminder of what has been lost: a time when the freedom to touch another person was taken for granted. On one level, the circles appearing over the dancers brings to mind the daily published infographics showing the spread of Coronavirus and its case fatality rates, a constant reminder of the danger associated with physical contact. The work also calls to mind one of the earliest resurrection appearances recorded in John\u2019s Gospel: when Mary Magdalene first recognises Jesus, she reaches out to towards him, to which he replies, \u201ctouch me not\u201d (<i>Noli me Tangere<\/i>). Jesus explains his refusal to be touched saying, \u201cI have not yet ascended to the Father.\u201d One possible interpretation is that Jesus is pointing Mary\u2019s attention away from the physical act of resurrection and towards its spiritual meaning.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Within this framework, the rotating discs become symbolic of the wafer that the Priest distributes during the Eucharist and over which he prays the words, \u201cthis is my body, broken for you.\u201d Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, the night before his death when he met with his disciples to celebrate the Passover Seder. At this meal, they would have recited the ten plagues visited on Pharaoh and his people, to force them to release the Israelites from slavery. Jesus is revealing to the disciples that the tenth plague, which resulted in the death of the first-born child, is about to be enacted on him. The incarnate God is not immune to the ravages of a plague or virus, but through his death, all people are saved from the slavery of sin.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The rotating discs, shot through a lens-cap, can also be interpreted as an eschatological metaphor that corresponds to Paul\u2019s description of a resurrection life that is, at the same time, both realised and not yet realised; present now and yet still in the future: \u201cFor now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.\u201d This partial \u2018blindness\u2019 co-exists with the acclamation of faith, \u201cHere Comes the Son\u201d. The New Testament looks towards a historical future, towards the redemption of the whole world, but from the angle of the fallen world and its history, that can only be expressed apocalyptically.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The theme of looking through a glass is reinforced towards the end of the fifteenth station, when the dancers move out of view and the camera focusses on a seam between two opaque glass windows. Until now, the dancers have been dancing in front (or on top) of this seam, which corresponds visually with the windscreen wipers in <i>Station 1<\/i> that cut through Maria\u2019s body. The abstracted architecture also resembles <i>Station 2<\/i>, where the astragals in the airport window form a cross. There is a sense of completion in the journey, achieved through the crucifixion.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The work invites discourse about the Christian journey of faith in which the church approaches Good Friday with the prior knowledge of the Resurrection: it lives with the knowledge that the victory has been won, and yet acknowledges that human beings still encounter the pain of death, darkness and separation in this life. In the meantime, the church is nourished by the sacraments and in particular the Eucharist \u2014 and reminded of its justification and salvation through observance of Lent and the celebration of Easter \u2014 through re-living the <em>Via Crucis<\/em> and the <em>Via Lucis<\/em>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Commentaries courtesy Lucy Newman Cleeve, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.manandeve.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">curator<\/a>, producer and writer<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Source material used in accordance with <a href=\"https:\/\/tailbiter.com\/art\/copyright\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Copyright and Rights in Performances (Quotation and Parody) Regulations 2014<\/a> &#8211; for \u00a9 acknowledgements and further information please follow the &#8216;about&#8217; links under each video work.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Easter video reflection for such a time as this, with readings by front line workers and those isolating at home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-projects","tag-archived"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7621,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/7621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artschap.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}