Friday, April 02, 2010

feature artist

if there's such a thing as an american christian arts establishment, then image is that establishment's voice.

i subscribe to their email newsletter and my take is that most of their coverage is given to middle-aged white americans (at least, as far as their 'artist of the month' section goes).

but their write-up of this month's feature artist is a nice piece of work. artist of the month: God.

here's a snip:

"Controversies over God’s creative process have frequently overshadowed a proper critical recognition of his work. To be sure, God is often lauded as "wondrous" and "awesome"--acclaimed for combining unfathomable mystery with everyday accessibility--but God’s genre-bending creations deserve nuanced analysis quite apart from scuffling over how long it took him to make them all ... Another notable work, The Universe (date indeterminate), is often cited as a highly influential piece. While the creation of The Universe signaled a turning point in God’s craft, the searing luminescence of its execution and the expansiveness of its vision went critically unnoticed until Galileo looked at it through a telescope. Since then, as Carl Sagan put it, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe"--enabling us to attribute even this beloved American tradition to the influence of God’s early masterwork. Some of God’s later work has been met with less-than-favorable reviews, such as Seymour P. Lyman of Teaneck, New Jersey (1954), described by viewers as "mousy," and "prone to rambling on about his stamp collection." Despite such harsh critical reception, God’s fondness for each one of his works in the human genre has been well-publicized."

read the whole thing here - you can even subscribe to the newsletter yourself if you like.

happy good friday.

on the headphones: 'two kids' by cassettes won't listen, from the album 'small-time machine'.

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