Leo Shanahan, Bible Bashing, islam and a cheap easy shot at contemporary art

(Above: a bit of anti-Christian graffiti from Roman times Alexamenos is worshipping his god).

It wouldn't be a good way to end the week on Loon Pond without touching on something from The Punch, Australia's dumbest conversation.

Cue Leo Shanahan with Bible bashing is easy, but would artists touch Islam?

What's got Leo agitated is that the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow has apparently opened a new exhibition that originally aimed to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text, and left a bible open at the exhibition inviting people to write whatever they wanted in it. Cue scribbles like "Fuck the Bible" and "Fascist God". Which leads Leo to cogitate deeply:

My first question is if God is a Fascist why did he just not make us all look Swedish?

WTF? Perhaps because he thought the fascists were German and Italian? Sure Percy Grainger thought the nordics were wonderful, but the Swedes weren't exactly to the forefront in the twentieth century fascist movement. Back to history 101 for real swot session Leo.

Another more serious one is why is it considered artistically legitimate by some to vandalise the Bilble and not another religious text, say the Koran.

Well d'oh. Whatever the Bilble might be in this modern proof reader free age, just who on earth considers it artistically legit to vandalise it, and not another religious text, when to a decent atheist all religion is ripe for a spoof job - though discretion suggests that when sending up any religion, make sure there's no built like a brick shithouse true believer in the vicinity.

One thing's for sure. Handing out a  pen at any arts exhibition shows a willingness to walk on the wild side, in much the same way as you have to keep a careful eye open these days for what might be scribbled in visitors' books (the one in the museum of the city of New York was very disturbing).

Yep, if you're going to hand someone a can of spray paint, the first thought of a graffiti artist won't be that Leo is a wit. Not when they can spray Leo is a fuckwit.

Which reminds me of all the graffiti they found on the walls of Pompeii (you can go here if you want more than Myrtis bene felas, or Myrtis you do great blow jobs).

But I guess Leo's serious point is to take up the Catholic church's mournful whinge about the way Christians are given a hard time while the Islamics get off scott free.

The Catholic Church has made this point in its response to the exhibition, which also shows a woman tearing up the Bible and stuffing it down her undies.

So why doesn’t more art question, critique or parody Islam?

Well Leo gets one bit right when he notes that the likes of Salman Rushdie, the Danish cartoonists and Theo van Gogh have had a hard time when tackling Islam, in much the same way that you didn't want to be doing sketch comedy about Christians during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.

He might also have added that in a western context it's easier to slag off the thing you know and are familiar with, rather than have a go at something that's in the minority (in much the same way as a joke about Ganesha the elephant god doesn't spring naturally to the lips outside the world of Hindu elephant worship, even if told he's the god of knowledgde and a handy remover of obstacles).

But then Leo fudges it:

This is not an invitation to go out and start tearing pages from anyone’s holy text - in fact the work of van Gogh suffered from the same cheap attention seeking techniques as the Glasgow stunt does, and ultimately it doesn’t make for very good art.

Well no, but the original art work wasn't an invitation to start tearing pages from the bible, so much as to write in it. Let's not conflate the pen job with the panties gig since conflation seems to be Leo's main game.

So let's start soft core. Why doesn't Leo do an installation of  a Koran at News Ltd., invite his colleagues to write in it, and then publish the results on the intertubes?

And then if that's a hit, how about Leo starts a trend? Why not invite people to go out and start tearing pages from anyone's holy text - hey, I'll even donate a couple of duplicate Uncle Scrooge comics. He can shove them down his underdaks, and I reckon we might even be able to get Bonds involved, as they try to make up for their heading offshore behavior.

Then Leo'd be an artist, and he wouldn't be able to blather on in the same way about what makes very good art, which he seems to want to mark down because cheap attention seeking techniques might be involved. Which would be a bit of a worry for anyone putting on a play in a theatre and putting up signs and advertising and maybe even neon lights and a picture of a half naked woman guaranteed to get you inside to endure a monologue about vaginas.

But then it finally dawns on Leo:

But given the role and shape of Islam in the world at present, maybe it should be just as much a target of artistic critique in the west as Christianity often finds itself?

Yes, in spades, and isn't it grand how the secularists have tamed the Christian hordes to an extent unthinkable not so long ago, and how soon can we start on taming the Islamic follies - seeing as how they make up an alarming, disturbing, threatening 2% or thereabouts of Australia's population.

Artistic critique? WTF. Doesn't the day in day out pounding of Islam from the News Ltd stable count as artistic critique? And should art be mere propaganda, or a theological dispute?

You see Leo, here's the problem. It wasn't the artist that wrote the notes in the bible, it was the punters visiting the exhibition that did the scribbling:

Next to the Bible lie several pens with a note saying: "If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it."

Naturally enough, the punters obliged, especially those who had been excluded:

"This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all," one message read.

Another scrawled over the first page of Genesis: "I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this."

So what did you expect or want? That everybody just scribble in the bible "god's a jolly good chappie"? Or not scribble at all? Never write in the bible? So much for all the true believers who underline in pencil every second phrase. Or my grandmother's family listing of births, deaths and marriages.

Leo manages to get one thing right. The anonymous Catholic church response quoted in the story - "One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced" - was a typical piss Christ folly, which entirely misses the point, as the display was originally proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church.

So the artist organizes a display proposed by Christians and a few passers by scribble in much the same way as Roman citizens back in the day as Pompeii. And all Leo can think of is a little modern art bashing:

In turn these serve as self-fulfilling prophesies for artists staging the exhibition just itching to be victimised for something.

But if these guys are indeed at “the cutting edge of contemporary art”, as they told The Times, it might be worth having a look around the world today and realising that there are tougher holy cows than the Bible walking around.

Is that so Leo? When was the last time you walked into a Southern Baptist church and shouted "I am Satan come amongst you" as a kind of Ken Kesey merry prankster work out?

But I keed, I keed. I promise you the next time that an Islamic mosque suggests an artist put the Koran on view in an exhibition with a pen nearby (and no jihadist or video camera in sight) I'll scrawl in it that Islam is a really dumb holy cow religion. Or how about "make out with a virgin now because there ain't no virgins in heaven".

I might also tear out the flyleaf in the book and scribble a note that Leo Shanahan is a dipstick who consistently confuses art with propaganda and theological posturing, and the actions of punters at an exhibition as the work of the artist, all in the name of a bit of News Ltd style shit stirring about Islamics v the Christians and how the ref gave the Islamics yet another bloody free kick right in front of goal.