Cardinal George Pell, the Blake Prize, ignorance and confusion and the uselessness of modern art

(Above: a work by Adam Cullen. Eek, soooh gross).

Isn't it pleasing to see the Blake Prize under the hammer from Cardinal George Pell. For a moment there I hadn't paid any attention to it, but as soon as I heard it was full of outrageous heresy, I rushed off to the site to be shocked and horrified.

You can too - the Blake shortlist of finalists is available here for viewing, and happily they even have quick time files which will allow you to view the winners, which turned out to be videos (though I must say the winner Rapture, might have done better to wander off to Hillsong to capture some images of ecstasy).

But back to Pell and what shocked him:

... the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney believes some of the work reflects religious ignorance and confusion more than thought and understanding.

He singled out a depiction of David and Goliath by the painter Adam Cullen, where the biblical figures are naked and deformed and David brandishes Goliath's head, as ''gross''. ''It's difficult to see how that is not anti-religious,'' Cardinal Pell said. (see Louise Schwartzkoff's story Blake Prize art anti-religious, says Pell).

Well see the painting above, and wonder. Is showing a weenie and claws anti-religious, or just a quirky variation on a theme that's been painted more times than Renaissance folk had hot dinners?

Continuing his critique, the renowned aesthetician managed to get upset by another work:

Belinda Mason's The Last Supper is a photographic portrait of the suspended Catholic priest Peter Kennedy, removed from his parish in Brisbane after allowing women to preach, using unorthodox prayers and blessing same-sex relationships.

Cardinal Pell criticised the artist's depiction of Father Kennedy in a Christ-like pose. ''There is almost an element of kitsch about it,'' he said. ''There's no substance to it, but the church is not there to censor what I would regard as a deficient expression of religion.''

So here it is, so you can frolic in the kitsch:

Well it's not to my taste, but compared to the vulgarities and kitsch that dress Catholic churches (culminating in the gothic monstrosities that litter St Peters) I would have thought it relatively restrained and subdued, saying as much about Father Kennedy's persecution complex and the use of the Christ figure as it does about the banality of religious iconography.

I do wonder if there's a little theological disputation caught up in the criticism, but no, surely it couldn't have anything to do with Kennedy's outrageous same sex loving, allowing females to speak and unorthodox prayers that might be at the heart of the assessment? Never mind, there are other controversies to pursue:

He praised Dianne Coulter's sculpture of a saint-like Aboriginal figure, but said other works, such as the Archibald Prize winner, Google Earth (Faith or Fear) by Guy Maestri, were ''only vestigially connected with religious understanding''.

So here's the one he liked:

And here's the one he didn't:

But when he talks about only a vestigial connection to religion in the work by Maestri, clearly the worthy cleric hadn't read Paul Sheehan's conversion to the faith of Googlism (as written up at length here under the header In Google we trust: our new faith):

Millions of words have been written and broadcast about the rise of religion around the world, but rarely included in the discourse is the most powerful new spiritual force of them all. For hundreds of millions of people there is a new portal to understanding, a gateway to the world, a tree of knowledge, a believers' bible. The legion of believers grows with every hour. They believe in Google.

The word suggests infinite power. It is derived from a mathematical term, googol, which means one followed by a hundred zeros. The two visionaries who founded the company called Google chose the name to signify their dream of harnessing the immensity of information flowing through cyberspace. They have succeeded. This year Google will process more than 180 billion requests for information.

And so on and on about the ecstatic glories of Google, even if half mocking, until we get down to this and it almost seems as if Sheehan is serious:

... Which brings us back to Google. It has been able to harness the wisdom of crowds, the collective effort of many people acting independently of each other, on a scale never seen before.

Because of Google, our species' capacity and need for co-operation is evolving into a new and higher phrase of social organisation. We appear to be becoming more like a giant ant colony, a multitude of individuals with a collective brain, and a single wellspring, a super-entity which evokes power, action and belief. It has a name. We call it Google.

Well yes, but now I want to know exactly why Pell is criticising Maestri for being tangential, when really the criticism should be that he doesn't go deeply enough into the heart of the new religion and bee hive spirituality to satisfy the likes of a Sheehan!

Or is it just that there's more in the universe than dreamed of by Cardinal Pell? Well it seems another cleric shares Pell's dreaming, because he too chipped in:

The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Reverend Robert Forsyth, said the prize should express a variety of ideas about religion, but some finalists were simply clever jokes or empty propaganda. ''Being diverse and confronting is not inconsistent with religious art, but it's not enough. My concern is that they seem to be lacking in depth … Perhaps they reflect our confusion about what is religious or spiritual.''

Clever jokes or empty propaganda? You mean like some churches? Lacking in depth? Ever read the lyrics to a Hillsong tune?

What to say? Perhaps clerics talking about religion is bad enough, but get them babbling on about art and they're truly hopeless.

No wonder poor old Andrew Frost is befuddled in today's Herald, noting that he expected that the judges (he was one) thought the fuss would most likely be about giving the main prize to a video work (Godly art poses questions, God only knows answers). After all, we all know video work is just one step shy of satanism, as the young forsake genuine plastic skills for the false god of digital digerati.

Frost's even more befuddled by Pell flinging around words like 'kitsch', 'anti-religious' and 'insubstantial', but I guess it shows how clever and cunning the heresy of Pell-ism is these days.

How else to attract attention to a rather remote outpost of the modern art world, than to wax indignant about the piss Christ works therein. That way the punters flock to the controversy, and suddenly everyone's talking about Pell and religion, and even in passing the Blake prize.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, and yes modern art remains the eternal, ever ready skinnable cat. So quickly dash off to the Blake on line (or in the flesh) so you can be truly horrified by the vulgarities of modern art ...

... and when you have another spare moment then quickly duck off to St Mary's in Sydney, where you can see the lovely oil painting Our Lady of the Southern Cross by Paul Newton hanging there, having been commissioned by Cardinal Pell for World Youth Day Sydney 2008. The image below is but a pale reflection of its rich aesthetic and spiritual charms ...