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BIBLIOGRPAHY
Books
Franz Kafka-
The Trial
Metamorphosis
Jack Vernon- Inside The Black Room
David Shrigley-
Ants Have Sex In Your Beer
Human Achievement
Baselitz-Catalogue from 2007 show at the royal academy
Bret Easton Ellis-
Less Than Zero
Lunar Park
Rules of Attraction
American Psycho
Herbert Marshall- Masters of Soviet Cinema
Richard Taylor- The Battleship Potemkin
Peter Gidal-
Materialist Film
Structural Film Anthologhy
Michael O’Pray- Avant-Garde Film
Marjane Satrapi- Persepolis
Marina lewycka- A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Jack Kerouac-
On The Road
Dharma Bums
Big Sur
Mark Oliver Everett- Things The Grandchildren Should Know
Albert Camus-
The Outsider
The Fall
James Joyce- Portrait of the artist as a young man
THE BIBLE
Jean Baudrillard- The Ecstacy of Communication
Oliver Rowse- Milk
Charles Bukowski- Notes of a Dirty Old Man
William Burroughs-
Junky
Naked Lunch

Film
Darren Aronofsky-
π
Requiem For A Dream
The Fountain
Wes Anderson-
Bottle Rocket
Rushmore
The Royal Tenebaums
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
The Darjeeling LTD
Fantastic Mr.Fox
Guillermo Del Toro-
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pedro Almodovar-
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
All About My Mother
Talk To Her
Bad Education
Volver
Alfonso Cuaron-
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Children Of Men
The Coen Brothers-
Blood Simple
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
Raising Arizona
Barton Fink
No Country for Old Men
A Serious Man
Burn After Reading
Godfrey Reggio-
Koyaanisqatsi
Powaqqatsi
Nagoyqatsi
Evidence
Peter Greenaway
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Draughtsman’s Contract
Windows
A Zed & Two Noughts
David Lynch-
The Short films of David Lynch
Mulholland Dr.
Lost Highway
Wild at Heart
Inland Empire
Jan Svankmajer-
Alice
Food
The Ossuary
Jabberwocky
Dimensions of Dialogue
Meat Love
The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia
Flora
The Brothers Quay-
The Comb
The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer
This Unnameable little Broom
Stille Nacht
Dziga Vertov-
Man with a Movie Camera
Richard Linklater-
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
Waking Life
Dazed & Confused
Fast Food Nation
A Scanner Darkly
Slacker
Harmony Korine-
Gummo
Julien Donkey-Boy
Mister Lonely
Werner Herzog-
Encounters at the End of the World
Rescue Dawn
The Wild Blue Yonder
Grizzly Man
The White Diamond
Fitzcarraldo
Jim Jarmusch-
Broken Flowers
Coffee & Cigarettes
Ghost Dog
Dead Man
Night on Earth
Down by Law
Stranger Then Paradise
Wim Wenders-
The American Friend
Paris, Texas
Buena Vista Social Club
Room 666
David Cronenberg-
Crash
Eastern Promises
A History of Violence
eXistenZ
Naked Lunch
Dead Ringers
The Fly
Videodrome
Julian Schnabels
Before Night Falls
Basquiat
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
OTHER FILMS
Beautiful Losers
Lords of Dogtown
Lost in Translation
Being John Malkovich
The Graduate
Blow
I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone
A Perverts Guide to Cinema
Zizek!
There Will be Blood
The Assassination of Jesse James
The French Connection
Aluminium Fowl

Websites
www.artmonthly.co.uk
www.tate.org.uk/
www.davidlynch.com/
www.postsecret.com
www.rednosestudio.com
www.thedailynice.com
www.ubu.com
www.rescen.net
www.luxonline.com
www.vdb.com
www.e-flux.com
www.trotamexico.com/es/home
www.neabeyrouth.org
www. sheffdocfest.com
www. globalpeopleproject.net
www.kirschner-panos.info
www.nobejaminbutton.wordpress.com
www.unicone.co.uk
www.legwearuk.co.uk
www.noisefields.com
www.flickr.com/photos/cosmococa/
www.fatalfarm.com/main.html
www.marksinfinitesolutions.com
www.timesonline.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk
www.mitworld.mit.edu/video/640
www.contempaesthetics.org
www. andresserrano.org
www.yvon-lambert.com
www.mattsgallery.org
www. ensemble.va.com.au/Grayson/

Exhibitions
Tate Modern-
Global Cities- Group Show
Flowers & Questions- Fischili & Weiss
Sculptures- David Smith
Retrospective- Louise Bourgeois
Dali & Film- Group Show
Retrospective- Juan Munoz
Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia
Pop Life – Art in a material world
Unilever Series – Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Retrospective – Gilbert and George
Retrospective – Cildo Meireles
Tate Britain-
Turner Prize 2006- Group Show
Turner Prize: A Retrospective- Group Show
State Britain- Mark Wallinger
How We Are Photographing Britain
Retrospective – Francis Bacon
The Stage of Drawing – Gesture and Act
Royal Academy-
Retrospective- Rodin
Retrospective- Georg Baselitz
From Russia- Group Show
Cranach
Retrospective – Anish Kapoor
Thomas Dane Gallery-
Running Thunder-Steve Mcqueen
Mummery+Schnelle-
Time After Time- Ori Gersht
Philip Akkerman
Matt’s Gallery-
Look What They Done To My Song- Michael Curran
Chisenhale Gallery-
Hako- Hiraki Sawa
Gagosian Gallery-
Pop Art Is- Group Show
A is For Umbrella- Michael Craig-Martin
Vortices- Alberto Di Fabio
Nettie Horn-
The Islanders- Group Show
Atlas - Group show
The Whitechapel Gallery-
Robert Towne- Sarah Morris
Sophie Calle - Retrospective
BFI Gallery-
Hold: Vessel 2, 2007- Lynette Wallworth
Alon Zakaim Fine Art-
Vanitas- Tolleck Winner
Fieldgate Gallery-
Isobar- Group Show
Pompidou centre-
Fabrica; Les Yeux Overt- Group Show
Body, Colour, Immaterial- Yves Klein
Haunch Of Venison-
Studio Wall Drawings- Keith Tyson
Stephen Friedman Gallery-
God Is Idle- David Shrigley
St Pancras Church-
Still Another Place- Group Show
Hales Gallery-
I am a living sign- Bob and Roberta Smith
Sir John Soane’s Museum
Alexandre Pollazzon LTD-
END- Steve Van Den Bosch
V&A-
China Design Now
Albermarle Gallery-
Richard Harrison
The Courtauld Gallery-
Impressionism- Group Show
White Cube & White Cube 2-
You Dig The Tunnel, I’ll Hide The Soil-
Group Show (Hoxton Sq)
Gregory Crewdson (Mason’s Yard)
Family and Others- Chuck Close (Mason’s Yard)
Aperiatur Terra- Anslem Kiefer (Mason’s Yard)
Thomas Williams Fine Art-
Recent Paintings- Paul Simonon
Bloomberg Space-
IF– People and Places in Recent Film & Video
Places of Laughter and Crying- Sarah Beddington
The Land of Cockaine- Heather & Ivan Morison No Future
The Fall – Stefan Bruggemann & Dr Atl
Comma 13 –Irina Korina
Comma 14 – Vicky Wright
Comma 15 – Ian Kiaer
Comma 16 – Dorothy Cross
Phillips De Pury Gallery – Martin Kippenberger & his collaborators.
Kingsway Tram Station – Conrad Shawcross Chord
Scala – No Age
Beaconsfield Gallery –
Soundtrap IV – John Wynne
¬¬Bob & Roberta Smith’s Factory Outlet¬
Degree Art Gallery – Jemma Grundon – Reverie
¬Boyschool – David Jones – The Agent Inside
Fred –
Brian Montuori – Winter Americana
Anima(l) – Olivier Richon
The Fall – Ansuya Blom
The Crypt Gallery – Simon Dawe & Julie Goldsmith
Area 10 – Bricks – Group show
Gagosian Gallery -
Michael Craig Martin – A is for Umbrella
Richard Serra – Fernando Pessoa
Pop Art is – Group Show
Alberto Di Fabio - Vortices
Elecktrowerkz – I Had Too Much Dream Last Night
ICA – For the blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there – Group show
Beirut-
Lebanese Film Festival
Beirut Art Centre –
Prisoner of War – Bernard Khoury
Earth of Endless Secrets Writing for a Posterior Time – Akram Zaatari
Location One –
Pull – Jane Philbrick
Virtual Residency Project - Mission Accomplished
Claire Oliver Gallery –
Noah Fischer – Monitor
Judith Schaechter – New Parables in Glass
Dialogue Gallery – Remnants – Gerard Mannix Flynn
Brooklyn Museum – Gilbert and George Retrospective
Gallery 9 – All that Flows - Agnes Pezeu
Monika Bobinska – The Macabre Masterpiece of Terror – Group Show
Modern Art Oxford – The House of Books Has No Windows – Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Wilkinson Gallery –
St John Augsburg - Silke Schatz
Episode III – Renzo Martens
Guggenheim
The Space Whatever – Catherine Opie
Café 1001 – Trypps Trypps Trypps Trypps Trypps – Ben Russell
Paul Kasmin Gallery – Still Life Polaroids – Andy Warhol
Southbank Centre – Other Voices, Other Rooms – Andy Warhol
Whitney Museum
Seed Stage - Corin Hewitt
The Paris Years – Alexander Calder
Progress – Group Show
Matthew Marks Gallery – Sculpture, Painting, Drawing – Tony Smith
Artists Space – Matters of Sensation – Group Show
Ramis Barquet Gallery – Crazy Diamond - Victor Rodriguez
Spring Projects – Deliverance – Matt Collishaw
D’Amelio Terras – Concert Room With Voices – Massimo Bartolini
Deitch Projects –
Down – Kehinde Wiley
The Ten Commandments – Keith Haring¬¬
Dia: Beacon- Group Show
The Drawing Centre –
Furniture and Lighting – Greta Magnusson Grossman
Demonstration Drawings – Rirkrit Tiravanija
Bard College – American Ballet Theatre
Andrew Kreps Gallery – Unshamelessfulnessly – Robert Melee
One in the Other Gallery – The Persecution – Group Show
Metro Pictures – Olaf Breuning
Sarah Meltzer Gallery – Vein – Jason Middlebrook
Sikkema Jenkins & Co – Arturo Herrera
Fredericks & Freiser – Midnight in the Empire - Zak Smith
London - Saigon - Dalat - My Tho - Long Xuyen - Phnom Penh
- Siem Reap - Sihanoukville - Kampong Cham - Krache - Ban
Lung - Stung Treng - Si Phan Don - Pakxe - Vientiane - Vang
Vieng - Luang Prabang - Luang Nam Tha - Hanoi - Hai Phong
- Hue - Hoi An - Nha Trang - London - New York - Baltimore -
Washington DC - London - Athens - Cairo - Basata - Aqa-
ba - Wadi Musa - Ma’an - Dana - Amman - Jarash - Iraqi
Border - Damascus - Beirut - Byblos - Tripoli - Becharre -
Sidon - Tyre - Aleppo - Antakya - Adana - Ankara - Istan-
bul - Sofia - Belgrade - Sarajevo - Split - Novaljia - Zadar
- Mostar - Zaostrog - London - Chasterix Sancy - London
New York
October - November 2008
Conrad Shawcross Exhibition -
“Chord” (2009)
Kingsway Tram Station

Conrad Shawcross’ latest exhibition chord

was held in the disuused tram station
underneath kingsway near holborn, people
had to pre book and were allowed down
in small groups. accompanied by a guide.
the old station is pretty dank and miserable
to be honest but holds some mystery just
oin the fact that the only people allowed
down there in recent years have been film
makers and security. after passing throug
the station walking along the old tram
tracks you reach “Chord” Shawcross’ gi-
ant rope making machine, moving almost
invisibly slowly and gradually entwining 324
colours of string to make an enourmous
multicoloured piece of rope that was later
cut up and sold as editions, one of the
ropes was on show at the Frieze art Fair.
 Albert Oehlen studied in Hamburg with
Sigmar Polke, played a central role in
a prodigious group of artists who came
to the fore in the ’80s, and was as-
sociated with various movements and
groups—some apt, some gratuitous. I
would describe him with that popular
health-food term free radical. Today, the
German-born Oehlen lives and works in
Berlin, Switzerland, and Spain. A retro-
spective of his work opened recently at
Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, and he
has a solo show running all this month at
Luhring Augustine in New York. I inter-
viewed him in New York when he came
for the opening of a show featuring the
work of his late friend Martin Kippenberg-
er at the Museum of Modern Art. During
the interview, we were joined by Oehlen’s
friend and mine, the painter Christopher
Wool.

Albert Oehlen - DJ Techno (2001)

www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/jacob_hashimoto.htm
www.designboom.com/contemporary/hashimoto.htm
www.maryboonegallery.com/artist/hashimoto_info.html
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/peter_coffin.htm
www.andrewkreps.com/artists_portfolio.html?aid=5
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/albert_oehlen.htm
www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists
www.interviewmagazine.com/art/albert-oehlen/
 Stefan Brüggemann was born in Mexi-
co City in 1975 and has been exhibiting
both in Mexico and abroad since the
mid-1990s. He is part of a young group
of artists working in Mexico today that
has attracted much recent international
attention for their irreverent, radical, and
often collaborative approaches to art
production. He works with and through www.stefanbruggemann.com
established systems of institutional
critique and conceptual art, but alters
their canonical approaches to art pro-
duction to allow ambiguity, irony, and
play to enter the works. Brüggemann
lives and works in Mexico City.
Reverie- Jemma Grundon
Solo Show
Vyner Street
Part of the Pop Life Exhibition
Tate Modern 2009
PUB MAPS etcv
www.christojeanneclaude.net/rf.shtml

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/947

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLgNkvtovV4
www.gordoncheung.com
Gordon Cheung is of Hong Kong origin and born in London 1975 where he lives and works
Cheung’s multi-media art capture the hallucinations between the virtual and actual realities of a
globalised world oscillating between Utopia and Dystopia. Spray paint, oil, acrylic, pastels, stock
listings and ink collide in his works to form epic techno-sublime vistas.
 Pompidou centre Paris

Chien Andalou !
 London Premiere of Sarah Morris’ sixth film “Robert Towne” a
portrait of the legendary writer, director,producer and actor of
the same name. The Film is part of an ongoing series includ-
ing a painted mural of intersecting lines and circles, also titled
‘Robert Towne”.

B
Soundtrap IV - John Wynne
Beaconsfield gallery 2008
John Wynne’s spatial composition is informed
by the everyday noises reaching the room
from beyond its walls. These have become
the basis for a set of synthetic sounds created
within the gallery and then moved intelligently
throughout the space via 32 sound channels
outputting through more than 300 hi-fi speak-
ers. The computer-generated experience is off-
set by the acoustic interventions of a modified
player-piano, powered by a domestic vacuum
cleaner and re-programmed with a new score
encoded on its paper roll.
TOM SACHS is a sculptor,
probably best known for his
elaborate recreations of various
Modern icons, all of them mas-
terpieces of engineering and
design of one kind or another.
In an early show he made Knoll
office furniture out of phone
books and duct tape; later,
he recreated Le Corbusier’s
1952 Unité d’Habitation using
only foamcore and a glue gun.
Other projects have included
his versions of various Cold War
masterpieces, like the Apollo
11 Lunar Excursion Module,
and the bridge of the battleship
USS Enterprise. And because
no engineering project is more
complex and pervasive than
the corporate ecosystem, he’s
done versions of those, too,
including a McDonald’s he built
using plywood, glue, assorted
kitchen appliances. He’s also
done Hello Kitty and her friends
in materials ranging from foam-
core to bronze.

A lot has been made of the

conceptual underpinnings of
these sculptures: how Sachs’
sampling capitalist culture,
remixing, dubbing and spitting
it back out again, so that the
results are transformed and
transforming. Equally, if not
more important, is his total em-
brace of “showing his work.” All
the steps that led up to the end
result are always on display.
On a practical level, this means
that all seams, joints, screws or
for that matter anything hold-
ing stuff together, like foamcore
and plywood, are left exposed.
Nothing is erased, sanded
away, or rendered invisible.
On a more philosophical level,
this means that nothing Sachs
makes is ever finished. Like any
good engineering project, ev-
erything can always be stripped
down, stripped out, redesigned
and improved.
Ed Templeton etc www.toymachine.com (Part of alleged galleries)
 For the blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there
ICA January 2010

We begin in ancient greece, with socrates announcing “I know that i know nothing”. Clearly confusion has
always been at the heart of wisdom. centuries latercomes a statement that many have attributed to charles
darwin: “A mathmatician is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there”. as a scien-
tist commited to cataloguing, explaining and drawing a clear picture of nature, Darwin mocked the mathmati-
cian’s inability to describe the physical world in anything but absract and speculative terms.
This new show at the ICA was originally organised byt he chief curator of the Contemporary Art Museum
St.Louis.
it gathers together artist such as Fischli & Weiss, Sarah Crowner, David William and Dave Hullfish Bailey. to
great affect.

ARTISTS
DON’T SOLVE
PROBLEMS Inside the museum of his making, asking a
THEY INVENT cat for it’s opinion on the merits of a paint-
NEW ONES ing is an entirely plausible exercise.

BRUCE NAUMAN

ART ISN”T
HERE TO
EXPLAIN
THINGS

Joseph Beuys
www.beirutartcenter.org/
Various Things from Egypt, Jordan and Syria
 http://artcontext.org/act/08/election/index.php

www.location1.org/vrp/
 The object that we call “monitor” is at
once ubiquitous, obsolete, and in the
www.certainlynot.com end, perhaps a non-object because
we gaze into its pixilated illusion, never
directly at its shape and mass. Today
the clunky beige boxes adorn sidewalk
trash piles because their cathode ray
tubes have recently given way to the
solid-state flat screen. In a backwards-
alchemical shift, they have morphed
from object of desire into “e-waste.” In
this sense, they now monitor the speed
of consumption.
View of Noah Fischer’s Studio: “Monitor”
works in progress
Noah Fischer’s new group of sculptures
ask us to reconsider these objects
at the intersection between trash and
promise. Promise not only of new vision
technologies, but of the autonomous
aesthetics of Modernism in its search for
the perfect form. This aesthetic promise,
Fischer argues, is embedded in today’s
everyday objects, notably the Apple
computer product line. To take an ex-
ample, the iphone, our new monitor, is
accompanied by rhetoric concerning a
sublime state reached through reduced
geometric form and infinite function. Like
a Donald Judd box, this is an object that
toys with transcending its object-hood.

Throughout her studio practice, Ms. Schaechter has worked to expand the potential of
glass process and its painterly possibilities. The Artist’s distinctive doe-eyed ladies and
graphic use of leaded line lay claim to the intersection between the staid traditions of
stained glass and outsider cartoons, graphic drawings and late night rock shows. Her
light boxes are pop culture icons that transport the viewer beyond the allegory of her
traditional medium to contemporary culture. Judith Schaechter’s list of influences are
disparate; underground comics, Victorian wreathes, planetary maps, manhole covers
and crystal chandeliers combine with unsettling depictions of wan human forms, under-
age sexuality and forlorn outcasts, creating a stark contrast to historical remembrances
of rose windows, Sainte-Chapelle, and Chartres; her renderings of the human body
are “all wrong in all the right ways”, says the artist.
As human beings we are constantly trying
to deal and come to terms with inter-
nalised trauma. Being unable or unwilling
to resolve certain issues we cling even
tighter to them and, though we yearn for
peace and rest and progress, we can’t
seem to let go of that which threatens to
destroy us.

What is it like to walk away from conflict,

to put your weapons beyond use? To
dwell upon all the years committed to the
never ending cycle of fright, fight, flight.
Resentment, hatred, fury and denial all
form part of the energy field that has
dominated the Irish political situation for
hundreds of years. Remnants (of our past) explores how, along with the hardware, these emotions need to
be deactivated if the grip that has bound us for generations to armed conflict is to be loosened finally and
permanently.

Letting go is always a process of loss, a process of grieving. The dawning realisation that you cannot retake
what you’ve reconciled to let go of. And the final, slow acceptance that is no longer of service to you anyway.
“Remnants” is a reflective process which offers participants a chance to engage with the emotional dynamics
that underlie decommissioning and a chance also to acknowledge the significance of the end of the armed
conflict that took place on these isles.
 OCTOBER 2058 - TATE MODERN - LONDON
It rains incessantly in London – not a day, not an hour without rain, a
deluge that has now lasted for years and changed the way people travel,
their clothes, leisure activities, imagination and desires. They dream about
infinitely dry deserts.

This continual watering has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. As well as erosion and
rust, they have started to grow like giant, thirsty tropical plants, to become even more monumen-
tal. In order to hold this organic growth in check, it has been decided to store them in the Turbine
Hall, surrounded by hundreds of bunks that shelter – day and night – refugees from the rain.

A giant screen shows a strange film, which seems to be as much experimental cinema as science fiction. Fragments
of Solaris, Fahrenheit 451 and Planet of the Apes are mixed with more abstract sequences such as Johanna Vaude’s
L’Oeil Sauvage but also images from Chris Marker’s La Jetée. Could this possibly be the last film?

On the beds are books saved from the damp and treated to prevent the pages going mouldy and disintegrating. On every bunk there is atleast
one book, such as JG Ballard’s The Drowned World, Jeff Noon’s Vurt, Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, but also Jorge Luis Borges’s
Ficciones and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666.

On one of the beds, hidden among the giant sculptures, a lonely radio plays what sounds like distressed 1958 bossa nova. The mass bedding, the
books, images, works of art and music produce a strange effect reminiscent of a Jean-Luc Godard film, a culture of quotation in a context of catastro-
phe.

In the shelter, the prone figures are reminiscent of Henry Moore’s ‘shelter drawings’, while his sculpture for sheep stands next to a giant apple core by
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Museums have been closed for years because of water seepages and the high level of humidity. In the
huge collective shelter that the Turbine Hall has become, a fantastical and heterogeneous montage develops, including sculpture, literature, music,
cinema, sleeping figures and drops of rain.
 Gilbert & George
Retrospective Exhibition
Tate Modern
2007

Gilbert & George

Retrospective Exhibition
Brooklyn Museum
2008
Glbert & George place themselves, their thoughts and their
feelings at the centre of their art, and almost all of the images
they use are gathered within walking distance of their home
in London’s East End. Yet their pictures capture a broad
human experience, encompassing an astonishing range of
emotions and themes, from rural idylls to gritty images of a
decaying London; from fantastical brightly-coloured panora-
mas to raw examinations of humanity stripped bare; from sex
advertisements to religious fundamentalism.

From the beginning, they wanted to communicate beyond

the narrow confines of the art world, adopting the slogan ‘Art
for All’. As a result they have joined the very small handful of
artists to become household names, and their impeccably-
dressed figures are instantly recognisable to the general
public.
These 2 exhibitions were almost identical in content it was all part of G&G’s travelling retrospective
that is slowly making its way through some of the worlds major cities. however the show in New York
was curated a hundred times better than the on at the Tate, walking round the Tate exhibition I felt
myself loosing concentration at being forced to look at the same paintings i’d been familiar with for
several years, however on entering the show at the brooklyn museum i felt as though they had some
how injected a whole new life into the paintings and turned out to be one of the best shows i saw in
the States.
Agnes Pezeu
Gallery 9
New York
Sophie Calle postcards
from Zaha Hadid temporary building central park
NYC 2007
Literally the best peice of art ever made
if: people and places in recent film and video
Since the 1990s many artists working in film and video have explored portraiture through
the form of the documentary. Even before this, artists working out of avant-garde, experi-
mental and independent cinema traditions ranged over the same area. What was often
claimed to be at stake in these works was the extent to which documentary’s perceived
veracity was questioned, deconstructed and then reconstructed to perform both a critique
of the form and a more truthful portrayal of the subject. ‘If: people and places in recent film
and video’ brings together five young UK-based filmmakers – Mark Boulos, Dwight Clarke,
Stephen Connolly, Ben Rivers, and Stephen Sutcliffe – who engage with portraiture in an
altogether more folksy, self-conscious and humble way.

Sarah Beddington
In Places of Laughter and of Crying, an ambitious large-scale commission created espe-
cially for Bloomberg SPACE, Beddington will hang 30 industrial unit LCD screens of differ-
ing sizes around the balcony area in a salon style installation. Each one depicts a single
uninterrupted stretch of real time observation, up to an hour long, which has either personal
or historical significance. The sense of duration in the works challenges the viewer to slow
down in order to observe these parallel moments. Filmed in diverse locations all over the
world, each scene appears loaded with either the memory of a past event or the anticipa-
tion of what might still happen there.
web.mac.com/victor.rodriguez/VictorRodriguez/CrazyDiamond.html
 Probably the biggest non museum space i’ve ever seen with the
most incredible array of works on display Dia at Beacon is the
single best gallery i’ve ever visited, with an overwhelming collection
of modern work it ileaves you feeling stunned and completely in
awe of the gallery. the Sol LeWitt wall drawings are spectacular and
to see so many together in 2 rooms dedicated solely to him made
the work much more meaningful then when i had encountered his
work on other occasions. seeing
Bruce Nauman’s original films of his
emprty studio was something i had
longed for, for a long time and to
see them presented alltogether in
the perfectly constructed space was
completely unbelievable.there are
too many works to talk about but
some of my particular highlights are
circled above. but this place in an
often missed gem of the New York
art scene.

Bruce Nauman.
Boris Groys

Religion in the Age of Digital Reproduction

The general consensus of the contemporary mass media is that the return of religion has emerged as the most impor-
tant factor in global politics and culture today. Now, those who currently refer to a revival of religion clearly do not
mean anything like the second coming of the Messiah or the appearance of new gods and prophets. What they are
referring to rather is that religious attitudes have moved from culturally marginal zones into the mainstream. If this
is the case, and statistics would seem to corroborate the claim, the question then arises as to what may have caused
religious attitudes to become mainstream.

The survival and dissemination of opinions on the global information market is regulated by a law formulated by
Charles Darwin, namely, the survival of the fittest. Those opinions that best adapt to the conditions under which they
are disseminated will, as a matter of course, have the best odds of becoming mainstream. Today’s opinions market,
however, is clearly characterized by reproduction, repetition, and tautology. The widespread understanding of con-
temporary civilization holds that, over the course of the modern age, theology has been replaced by philosophy, an
orientation toward the past by an orientation toward the future, traditional teachings by subjective evidence, fidelity to
origins by innovation, and so on. In fact, however, the modern age has not been the age in which the sacred has been
abolished but rather the age of its dissemination in profane space, its democratization, its globalization. Ritual, repeti-
tion, and reproduction were hitherto matters of religion; they were practiced in isolated, sacred places. In the modern
age, ritual, repetition, and reproduction have become the fate of the entire world, of the entire culture. Everything
reproduces itself—capital, commodities, technology, and art. Ultimately, even progress is reproductive; it consists in
a constantly repeated destruction of everything that cannot be reproduced quickly and effectively. Under such condi-
tions it should come as no surprise that religion—in all its various manifestations—has become increasingly successful.
Religion operates through media channels that are, from the outset, products of the extension and secularization of
traditional religious practices. Let us now turn to an investigation of some of the aspects of this extension and secular-
ization that seem especially relevant to the survival and success of religions in the contemporary world.

IRWIN, Corpse of Art, 2003–2004. Mixed media installation (wood, textile, wax, hair, vase, flowers).
Courtesy Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin / Ljubljana. Photo: Jesko Hirschfeld, 2007.

1. The Internet and the Freedom of Faith

The regime under which religion—any religion—functions in contemporary Western secular democratic societies is
freedom of faith. Freedom of faith means that all are free to believe what they choose to believe and that all are free to
organize their personal and private lives according to these beliefs. At the same time, however, this also means that the
imposition of one’s own faith on others in public life and state institutions, including atheism as a form of faith, cannot
be tolerated. The significance of the Enlightenment was not so much that it resulted in the complete disappearance
of religion, but that religion became a matter of private choice, which then resulted in the withdrawal of religion into
the private sphere. In the contemporary world, religion has become a matter of private taste, functioning in much the
same way as do art and design. Naturally, this is not to suggest that religion is precluded in public discussion. Howev-
er, the place of religion in relation to public discussion is reminiscent of the place of art as outlined by Immanuel Kant
in The Critique of Judgment: religion may be publicly discussed, but such a discussion cannot result in any conclusion
that would become obligatory, either for the participants of this discussion or for society as a whole. Commitment to
one religious faith or another is a matter of sovereign, private choice that cannot be dictated by any public author-
ity—including any democratically legitimized authority. Even more importantly, such a decision—as in the case of art—
need not be publicly argued and legitimized, but rather publicly accepted without further discussion. The legitimacy of
personal faith is based not on the degree of its power of persuasion, but on the sovereign right of the individual to be
committed to this faith.

In this respect, freedom of faith is fundamentally different from, let’s say, the kind of freedom represented in scientific
research. In the context of a scientific discussion every opinion can be argued for or against, but each opinion must
also be substantiated by certain facts and verified according to fixed rules. Every participant in such a discussion is
undoubtedly free—at least theoretically—to formulate his or her position and to argue in its favor. However, one may
not insist on a scientific opinion that is not subject to justification, and that would contravene all proof and evidence to
the contrary, without introducing any argument that would otherwise make one’s position plausible and persuasive to
others. Such unyielding resistance to the obvious, such blindness toward the facts, to logic and common sense, would
be regarded as bordering on the insane. If someone were to refer to his sovereign right to insist on a certain scientific
opinion without being able to legitimize this insistence by rational argument, he or she would be excluded from the
scientific community.

What this means is that our contemporary, Western notion of freedom is deeply ambiguous. In fact, discourse on
freedom always pivots on two radical types of freedom: an unconditional freedom of faith, that sovereign freedom per-
mitting us to make personal choices beyond all public explanation and justification, and the conditional, institutional
freedom of scientific opinion, which depends on the subject’s ability to justify and legitimize this opinion in accordance
with pre-determined, publicly established rules. Thus, it is easy to show that our notion of democratic, free society is
also ambiguous. The contemporary notion of political freedom can be interpreted in part as sovereign, in part as insti-
tutional: in part as the sovereign freedom of political commitment, and in part as the institutional freedom of political
discussion. But whatever may be said about the contemporary global political field in general, one thing remains cer-
tain: this field is becoming increasingly influenced, or even defined, by the Internet as the primary medium of global
communication. And the Internet favors private, unconditional, sovereign freedom over scientific, conditional, institu-
tional freedom.

Rabih Mroué, On Three Posters. Reflections on a Video Performance, 2006. Video (color, sound), 18 min.
Courtesy Sfeir-Semler Gallery. Photo: Lina Gheibeh.

In an earlier age of mass media—newspapers, radio or TV—the only possible assurance of freedom of opinion was an
institutionally guaranteed free access to this media. Any discussion revolving around freedom of opinion, therefore,
centered on the politics of representation, on the question as to who and what should be included, and who and what
should be excluded from standard news coverage and public political discussion. Today, all are free to create their own
Web sites without the need for discussion and legitimization. Freedom of opinion, as practiced on the Internet, func-
tions as the sovereign freedom of private commitment: neither as the institutional freedom of rational discussion, nor
as the politics of representation, inclusion and exclusion. What we experience today is the immense privatization of
public media space through the Internet: a private conversation between MySpace (www.myspace.com) and YouTube
(www.youtube.com) today substitutes for the public discussion of the previous age. The slogan of the previous age was,
The private is political, whereas the true slogan of the Internet is, The political is private.
Obviously, this new configuration of the media field favors religion over science, and sovereign religious politics over
institutionalized secular politics. The Internet is the space in which it is possible for contemporary, aggressive religious
movements to install their propaganda material and to act globally—without recourse to any institution for representa-
tion, or application to any authority for their recognition. The Internet provides these movements with the means to
operate beyond any discursively obtained legitimacy and with full sovereignty. In this sense, the contemporary return
of religion can be seen as the return of sovereign freedom after many decades or even centuries of the dominance of
institutional freedom.

Accordingly, the surge in religion may also be directly connected to the growing, sovereign freedom of private con-
sumption and capital investment on a global scale. Both are dependent on the Internet and other digital communica-
tions media that transgress the borders of national democratic institutions. In any case, both practices—religious and
economic—presuppose the functioning of the media universe as an arena for private, sovereign acts and decisions.
There is, moreover, one further significant similarity between capital investment and religious commitment: both
operate through language, though, at the same time, beyond language—where language is understood as the means of
(self-)explanation, justification, and legitimization.

Paul Chan, 1st Light, 2005. Digital video projection (color, no sound), 14 min., loop.
Courtesy Greene Naftali Gallery, New York. Photo: Jean Vong.

2. Religious Ritual and Mechanical Reproduction

Religion is often understood to be a certain set of opinions, associated with whether contraception should be permitted
or whether women should wear headscarves. I would argue, however, that religion—any religion—is not a set of opin-
ions but primarily a set of rituals, and that the religious ritual refers to a state in which there is a lack of opinions, a
state of opinionlessness—a-doxa—for it refers to the will of the gods or of God ultimately concealed from the opinions
of mortals. Religious language is the language of repetition, not because its subjects insist on any specific truth they
wish to repeatedly assert and communicate. Here, the language is embedded in ritual. And ritual is a re-enactment of
the revelation of a truth ultimately impossible to communicate. Repetition of a certain religious ritual celebrates the
encounter with such an incommunicable truth, the acceptance of this truth, being answerable to God’s love and main-
taining devotion to the mystery of revelation. Religious discourse praises God, and praises God in such a way as is sup-
posed to please God. Religious discourse operates not in the opposition between truth and error, as scientific discourse
does, but in the opposition between devotion and blasphemy.

The ritual, as such, is neither true, nor false. In this sense it marks the zero point of freedom of opinion, that is, free-
dom from any kind of opinion, from the obligation to have an opinion. Religious ritual can be repeated, abandoned,
or modified—but not legitimized, criticized, or refuted. Accordingly, the fundamentalist is a person who insists not
so much on a certain set of opinions as on certain rituals not being abandoned or modified, and being faithfully and
correctly reproduced. The true fundamentalist does not care about fidelity to the truth, but about the correctness of
a ritual, not about the theoretical, or rather, theological interpretations of the faith, but about the material form of
religion.

Now, if we consider those religious movements especially active today we observe that they are predominantly fun-
damentalist movements. Traditionally, we tend to distinguish between two kinds of repetition: (1) repetition of the
spirit and in spirit, that is, repetition of the true, inner essence of a religious message, and (2) repetition of the external
form of a religious ritual. The opposition between these two types of repetition—between living spirit and dead let-
ter—informs all Western discourse on religion. The first kind of repetition is almost always regarded as true repetition,
as the authentic, “inner” continuation of a religious tradition—the continuation that presupposes the possibility of a
rupture with the merely external, conventional, historically accidental form of this tradition, or even requires such a
rupture. According to this spiritualist interpretation of the religious tradition, the inner, spiritual fidelity to the essence
of a religious message gives to a believer the right to adapt the external, material form of this message to the changing
historical milieus and contexts without betraying the inner truth of this message. A religious tradition capable of trans-
forming and adapting itself to changing circumstances without losing its inner, essential identity is usually praised as
a living, spiritually powerful tradition capable of maintaining its vitality and historical relevance. On the other hand,
“superficial” adherence to the mere letter, to the external form of religion, to the “empty” ritual is, as a rule, regarded
as symptomatic of the fact that the religion in question lacks vitality, and even as a betrayal of the inner truth of this
tradition by the purely mechanical reproduction of its external, dead form. Now, this is precisely what fundamentalism
is, namely, the insistence on the letter as opposed to the spirit.

Joshua Simon, Shahids, 2003–2008. Video collage (colour, sound), 20 min., loop.
Courtesy Joshua Simon.

It is for this reason that religious fundamentalism has always possessed a revolutionary dimension: while breaking
with the politics of spirit, that is, with the politics of reform, flexibility, and adaptation to the zeitgeist, it goes on to
substitute for this politics of spirit the violent politics of the letter. Thus, contemporary religious fundamentalism may
be regarded as the most radical product of the European Enlightenment and the materialist view of the world. Reli-
gious fundamentalism is religion after the death of the spirit, after the loss of spirituality. Should the spirit perish, all
that remains is the letter, the material form, the ritual as event in the material world. In other words, difference in the
material form of religion can no longer be compensated by identity in spirit. A rupture with the external form of the
ritual cannot be compensated by the inner, spiritual fidelity to the religious truth. A material difference is now just a
difference—there is no essence, no being and no meaning underlying such a formal difference at a deeper level. In this
sense, fundamentalist religious movements are religions after deconstruction. If meaning, sense, and intention cannot
be stabilized, the only possibility for authentic repetition is literal repetition, mechanical reproduction—beyond any
opinion, meaning, sense, and intention. Islam would be an especially good case in point. While notoriously forbidding
the production of images, it does not forbid the re-production and the use of already existing images—especially in the
case of so-called “mechanically produced” images, such as photography or film. While it has meanwhile become banal
to say that Islam is not modern, it is obviously post-modern.

In his book Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze speaks of literal repetition as being radically artificial and, in this
sense, as being in conflict with everything natural, living, changing, and developing, including natural law and moral
law.1 Hence, practicing literal repetition can be seen as initiating a rupture in the continuity of life. In his remarks
on the philosophy of history, Walter Benjamin also describes the genuine revolution as a break with the continuity of
historical evolution, as a literal repetition of the past in the midst of the present. He also refers to capitalism as a new
kind of religion reduced to ritual and so devoid of any theology.2 Literal repetition, however, is not only a revolution
effectuated by capital or against it; that is, it is not only an act of violence against the flow of historical change, and
even against life as such. Literal repetition may also be seen as a way toward personal self-sacralization and immortal-
ity—immortality of the subject ready to submit him- or herself to such a repetition.

It is no mere accident that the working class has performed the repetitive, alienated, one might say, ritual work in the
context of modern industrial civilization, sacralized, in certain ways, by the socialist movements of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, whereas an intellectual or an artist—as embodiments of the creative spirit of change—remained
profane precisely because of their inability to repeat and to reproduce. Nietzsche had already made reference to literal
repetition—the eternal return of the same—as being the only possible way to think immortality after the death of spirit,
of God. Here, the difference between the repetitiveness of religious ritual and the literal reproduction of the world of
appearances disappears. One might say that religious ritual is the prototype of the mechanical reproduction that domi-
nated Western culture during the modern period, and which, to a certain degree, continues to dominate the contem-
porary world. What this suggests is that mechanical reproduction might, in its turn, be understood as a religious ritual.
It is for this reason that fundamentalist religious movements have become so successful in our time, for they combine
religious ritual with mechanical reproduction.

For Walter Benjamin, of course, mechanical reproduction entails the loss of aura, the loss of religious experience,
which he understands as the experience of uniqueness.3 He describes the religious experience as, one might say, a
unique spiritual experience. In this respect, his evocation of the experience of being enchanted by an Italian landscape
as an example of an authentic experience (of happiness, fullness, and the intensity of life) lost in the reproduction
process is particularly characteristic. But, one might argue, true religious experience is actually the experience of death
rather than the experience of life—the experience of death in the midst of life. Hence, precisely because mechanical re-
production may be understood as the lifeless repetition of the dead image, it can also be interpreted as a source of the
truly religious experience. In fact, it is precisely the loss of aura that represents the most radical religious experience
under the conditions of modernity, since it is in this way that a human being discovers the mechanical, machine-like,
repetitive, reproductive and, one might even say, dead aspect of his own existence.

3. The Digitalized Religion

However, as mentioned above, the new religious movements operate primarily through the Internet, by means of
digital rather than mechanical reproduction. During the last decades video has become the chosen medium of contem-
porary religious propaganda and is distributed through different TV channels, the Internet, commercial video stores,
etc. This is especially so in the case of the most recent, active, and even aggressive religious movements. The phenom-
enon of suicide-bomber confession videos and many other kinds of video production reflecting the mentality of radical
Islam have meanwhile become familiar to us. On the other hand, the new evangelical movements also operate with the
same medium of video. If one asks those responsible for public relations in these movements to provide information,
one is initially sent videos. This use of the video as the major medium of self-presentation among different religious
movements is a relatively new phenomenon. Traditionally, the standard medium was a script, a book, a painted image
or sculpture. The question then arises as to what constitutes the difference between mechanical and digital reproduc-
tion and how this difference affects the fate of religion in our age.

At this point, I would argue that the use of video as the principle medium by contemporary religious movements is
intrinsic to the message of these movements. Neither is it external to the understanding of the religious as such, which
underlies this use. This is not to suggest, following Marshall McLuhan, that here the medium is the message; rather, I
would argue that the message has become the medium—a certain religious message has become the digital code.

Boris Groys, Medium Religion [Medium Religion], 2006. Video lecture (color, sound), 25 min., loop.
Courtesy Boris Groys.

Digital images have the propensity to generate, to multiply, and to distribute themselves almost anonymously through
the open fields of contemporary communication. The origin of these messages is difficult, or even impossible, to locate,
much like the origin of divine, religious messages. At the same time, digitalization seems to guarantee a literal repro-
duction of a text or an image more effectively than any other known technique. Naturally, it is not so much the digital
image itself as the image file, the digital data which remains identical through the process of its reproduction and
distribution. However, the image file is not an image—the image file is invisible. The digital image is an effect of the vi-
sualization of the invisible image file, of the invisible digital data. Only the protagonists of the movie The Matrix (1999)
were able to see the image files, the digital code as such. The average spectator, however, does not have the magic
pill that would allow him or her, like the protagonists of The Matrix, to enter the invisible space otherwise concealed
behind the digital image for the purposes of directly confronting the digital data itself. And such a spectator is not in
command of the technique that would enable him or her to transfer the digital data directly into the brain and to
experience it in the mode of pure, non-visualizable suffering (as was able the protagonist of another movie, Johnny
Mnemonic). (Actually, pure suffering is, as we know, the most adequate experience of the invisible.) Digital data
should be visualized, should become an image that can be seen. Here we have a situation wherein the perennial spirit/
matter dichotomy is reinterpreted as a dichotomy between digital file and its visualization, or “immaterial informa-
tion” and “material” image, including visible text. In more theological terms: the digital file functions as an angel—as
an invisible messenger transmitting a divine command. But a human being remains external to this message, to this
command, and thus condemned to contemplate only its visual effects. We are confronted here with the transposition
of a divine/human dichotomy from a metaphysical to a technical level—a transposition that, as Martin Heidegger
would argue, is only possible by virtue of this dichotomy being implicitly technical from the outset.4

By extension, a digital image that can be seen cannot be merely exhibited or copied (as an analogue image can) but
always only staged or performed. Here, the image begins to function like a piece of music, whose score, as is gener-
ally known, is not identical to the piece—the score being not audible, but silent. For the music to resound, it has to be
performed. One could argue that digitalization turns visual arts into performing arts. To perform something, however,
means to interpret it, betray it, destroy it. Every performance is an interpretation and every interpretation is a misuse.
The situation is especially difficult in the case of an invisible original: if the original is visible it can be compared to a
copy—so the copy can be corrected and the feeling of distortion reduced. But if the original is invisible no such com-
parison is possible—any visualization remains uncertain in its relationship to the original; or one could even say that
every such performance itself becomes an original.

Sang-Kyoon Noh, Twin Jesus Christs, 2001. Sequins on polyester resin and fiberglass, 267 x 265 x 78 cm.
Courtesy Sang-Kyoon Noh. Photo: Eun-Kyung Yeom.

Moreover, today information technology is in a state of perpetual change—hardware, software, simply everything. For
this reason alone, the image is transformed with each act of visualization that uses a different and new technology.
Today’s technology is conceived in terms of generations—we speak of computer generations, of generations of photo-
graphic and video equipment. But where generations are involved, so also are generational conflicts, Oedipal struggles.
Anyone attempting to transfer his or her old text or image files to new software experiences the power of the Oedipus
complex over current technology—much data is destroyed, evaporating into the void. The biological metaphor says
it all: it is not only life that is notorious for this, but technology as well, which, supposedly in opposition to nature,
has now become the medium of non-identical reproduction. Benjamin’s central assumption in his famous essay “The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”—namely, that an advanced technology can guarantee the mate-
rial identity between original and copy—was not borne out by later technological developments.5 Real technological
development went in the opposite direction—toward a diversification of the conditions under which a copy is produced
and distributed and, accordingly, the diversification of the resulting visual images. Were technology to guarantee the
visual identity between the different visualizations of the same data, they would still remain non-identical due to the
changing social contexts of their appearances.

The act of visualizing invisible digital data is thus analogous to the appearance of the invisible inside the topography
of the visible world (in biblical terms, signs and wonders) that generate the religious rituals. In this respect, the digital
image functions like a Byzantine icon—as a visible representation of invisible digital data. The digital code seems to
guarantee the identity of different images that function as visualizations of this code. The identity is established here
not at the level of spirit, essence or meaning, but on the material and technical level. Thus, it is in this way that the
promise of literal repetition seems to acquire a solid foundation—the digital file is, after all, supposed to be something
more material and tangible than invisible God. However, the digital file does remain invisible, hidden. What this
signifies is that its self-identity remains a matter of belief. Indeed, we are compelled to believe that each act of visual-
ization of certain digital data amounts to a revelation of the same data, much as we are obliged to believe that every
performance of a certain religious ritual refers to the same invisible God. And this means that opinion about what is
identical and what is different, or about what is original and what is copy, is an act of belief, an effect of a sovereign
decision that cannot be fully justified empirically or logically.

Digital video substitutes the guarantees of spiritual immortality allegedly waiting for us beyond this world with the
technical guarantees of potentially eternal repetition inside this world—a repetition that becomes a form of immortali-
ty because of its ability to interrupt the flow of historical time. It is this new prospect of materialist, technically guaran-
teed immortality that the new religious movements de facto offer their adepts—beyond the metaphysical uncertainties
of their theological past. Placing human actions in a loop, both practices—ritual and video—realize the Nietzschean
promise of a new immortality: the eternal return of the same. However, this new technical guarantee remains a matter
of belief and sovereign decision. To recognize two different images as copies of the same image or as visualizations
of the same digital file means to value immortality over originality. To recognize them as different would be to prefer
originality in time to the prospect of immortality. Both decisions are necessarily sovereign—and both are acts of faith.

This text will be published in the catalog for the exhibition “Medium Religion,” curated by Boris Groys and Peter
Weibel, showing at ZKM, Karlsruhe, from 23 November 2008 to 19 January 2009. Images in this article feature works
from that exhibition.
Jesus of Hollywood
Ever since the dawn of cinema filmmakers have been tempted -- possibly by the devil -- to recreate the
events of the Gospels. In fact, within a few years of the birth of moving pictures the Lumiere brothers were
bringing Jesus to the screen in a respectful 44-minute film called La Vie et la Passion de Jesus Christ. If that
1903 incarnation marked Christ’s first known appearance in front of the camera, there have since been many,
many more, the latest being the BBC’s new TV series The Passion, starring Joseph Mawle as the Saviour.

It seems the only safe way to depict the Redeemer is from a respectful distance, making sure that he looks
angelic, Germanic and is accompanied by as lush a heavenly chorus as money can buy. Depart too much
from that reverential template and you’re sure to attract the ire of the godly, as a number of big-name filmmak-
ers have discovered to their cost.

Things started out respectfully enough. DW Griffith included the Passion in his typically grandiose 1916 epic,
Intolerance. His Christ, Howard Gaye, was suitably holy, but Griffith was forced to entirely reshoot his cruci-
fixion scene after Jewish groups complained that there were too many Pharisees around the cross and not
enough Romans. Accusations of anti-semitism would become a recurring theme in the Jesus films.

There were other silent assaults on the Gospels, including Lorimer Johnston’s The Last Supper (1914), and
Cecil B DeMille’s hilariously unsubtle King of Kings (1927). Clearly afflicted by a certain geographical confusion,
DeMille had Mary Magdalene pulled about on a chariot drawn by zebras, and his Jesus (HB Warner) was
backed by a permanent halo, just in case you forgot who he was.

Once the talkies came, though, filmmakers began to shy away from the theme. Depicting Jesus was one
thing, but making him talk? Who would play him? Surely an American accent would not be appropriate, and
what if he ended up being played by someone from New York? ‘Fugiv dem, fada, fuh dey know not wat dey
du.’ In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-1950s that Hollywood began tentatively dipping its toe back in the holy
water.

In sand-and-sandals epics like The Robe (1953) and Ben-Hur (1959), it became the custom to film Jesus
either from behind, from far away or out of camera altogether, leaving Victor Mature and Charlton Heston to
register on their awestruck faces their encounters with divinity.

This craven approach to the Christ was finally abandoned in 1961, when Nicholas Ray remade Cecil B DeMi-
lle’s King of Kings, and cast Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. This was the first major Hollywood talkie to show Christ’s
face, but some critics were not happy with what they saw, arguing that Hunter looked too young to be taken
seriously in the role. However, others praised his performance, and Ray ambitiously mounted vast re-enact-
ments of incidents like the Sermon on the Mount.

Ray’s film was sober stuff compared to the 1965 George Stevens spectacular, The Greatest Story Ever Told.
This was the Gospels writ large, with Christ played by the six-foot-four Swede, Max Von Sydow, supported by
a stellar cast. Chuck Heston was John the Baptist; Telly Savalas was Pontius Pilate; and if that wasn’t funny
enough for you, there was John Wayne dressed as a centurion, staring up at the cross and muttering that
immortal line, “Truly he is the son a’ gawd”. It was risible, and stilted, though Von Sydow made an interesting
Christ.

Only a year before that, Pier Paolo Pasolini had made a far more serious and accomplished film about Jesus.
In The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Pasolini memorably re-enacted the Passion in the arid landscape
of the Italian south, using a cast of amateurs and casting an unknown 19-year-old Spanish student called
Enrique Irazoqui as the man himself.
Pasolini was a known communist, so some were surprised by the reverence of his film, but the director had
been impressed by the reforms of Vatican II and commented that he was “an unbeliever who has a nostalgia
for belief”.

In the ‘70s, it was as though Jesus had turned to his disciples and said ‘Hey fellas -- let’s put on a show!’ For
this was the decade when Christ went musical. First there was Jesus Christ Superstar, Tim Rice and Andrew
Lloyd Webber’s jazzed-up take on the New Testament, with Ted Neeley playing a robust singing Jesus and
Carl Anderson a sympathetic -- and black -- Judas, but the writing was ropey and the film has not dated well.

Dating even less well is the other 1973 Jesus musical, Godspell. Filmed in New York and also based on a
stage musical, the film starred Victor Garber as a hepcat Jesus preaching in Central Park, complete with a
Superman T-shirt and afro hairdo. It was deeply embarrassing.

The screen Jesus most of us remember arrived in 1977, when Robert Powell starred in Franco Zeffirelli’s
TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. For Zeffirelli, it was the realisation of a life’s ambition, and the film was well-
made, deeply reverential and very, very safe. But Powell was a fine Jesus.

Reverence went out of the window in 1979 when the Pythons released their incendiary take on the matter,
Life of Brian. In the hysteria that followed its release, Cleese, Palin and co were at pains to point out that their
film is not about Jesus but the kind of people who followed him, but this did not spare them any abuse. The
film was never released here, and in London’s West End bowler-hatted zealots marched up and down in front
of cinemas shouting ‘down with this sort of thing’.

If anything, Martin Scorsese landed himself in even more trouble with his very interesting 1988 film, The Last
Temptation of Christ. Based on a book by Nikos Kazantzakis, the film’s most famous scene depicted Christ
on the cross imagining growing old and having a wife and family. He was only imagining it, mind, and soon
pulled himself together, but there was a hue and cry from the rosary bead brigade, and the interesting ques-
tions raised by the film got a bit lost in the media storm that followed.

In contrast, Mel Gibson became the poster boy of Catholic hardliners when he released the extremely well-
made Passion of the Christ in 2004. Gruesome in the extreme, the film left no one in any doubt as to exactly
how grisly a business the crucifixion was. But Jewish groups were offended by the film’s perceived anti-semi-
tism, which seemed to hark back to the old and pernicious notion that it was all the Jews’ fault.

So which of these films has made the best fist of telling the story of Christ’s last days? For me, it would have
to be Pasolini’s Gospel According to Saint Matthew, for its austere beauty and integrity. It took a communist to
do justice to the subject, and maybe that’s because Christ’s message had more to do with the teachings of
Karl Marx than the antics of TV evangelists.

- Paul Whitington
www.independent.ie