Art for All

I stumbled into the Gilbert & George exhibition at the Tate Modern yesterday and it has been really interesting reflecting on some of the pieces, especially in light of Good Friday. The exhibition is of course irreverent and deliberately shocking, but also bursting full of ideas and energy. I especially liked (although maybe 'like' is the wrong word) The Dirty Words Pictures, created in 1977 out of graffiti and images of social degradation. The pictures that really got me thinking are those works that combine sacred religious imagery, particularly the cross, with the sexually explicit and with graphic pictures of bodily discharge... I don't think it's coincidental that this was the emptiest room! In the exhibition guide, the duo are quoted as saying, "We consist of the stuff. It's our nourishment, it belongs to us, we're part of it, and we show this in a positive light". It is of course uncomfortable to look at but the point they are making is very democratic and a real manifestation of "Art for All". At the end of the day, when status and wealth are stripped away, this is the stuff of humanity - a great leveller! The later work does become much more aggressive towards religion, especially religious fundamentalism and the cross becomes the focal point for all of this anger. Sometimes I think that we are too encouraged to be 'unshockable'. These pictures are shocking and Christians shouldn't just accept them. However the true blasphemy lies not in the pictures themselves, but in any teaching that has allowed the cross to be interpreted as a symbol of oppression, rather than the greatest symbol of freedom.