dynamis a series on art, media and design Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design Editors: Christiane Kruse, Petra Maria Meyer, Norbert M. Schmitz and Arne Zerbst Taking Offense. Religion, Art, and Visual Culture in Plural Configurations Birgit Meyer, Christiane Kruse, Anne-Marie Korte (eds.) WILHELM FINK Preface Introduction Birgit Meyer, Christiane Kruse, Anne-Marie Korte Offending Pictures. What Makes Images Powerful Christiane Kruse Art and Religion in a Post-Secular, Multi-Religious Society Nika Spalinger The Downfall of the Utopias. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Modernist Heresies Norbert M. Schmitz Blasphemous Feminist Art. Incarnate Politics of Identity from a Post-Secular Perspective Anne-Marie Korte The Kaaba of New York Simon O’Meara From the »Religious« to the »Aesthetic« Image, or the Struggle over Art that Offends Monica Juneja Destroying Krishna Imagery. What are the Limits of Academic and Artistic Freedom? Maruška Svašek Blood, Sweat and Tears. The Martyred Body in Chinese Performance Art Tania Becker Dirty Pictures. Vulgar Street Art in Lahore, Pakistan Jürgen Wasim Frembgen / Asif Jehangir A Brief Anatomy of Offensive Imagery Jojada Verrips Is There Such a Thing as an »Offensive Picture«? Christoph Baumgartner The Dynamics of Taking Offense. Concluding Thoughts and Outlook Birgit Meyer Biographies List of Illustrations / Image Quotations con t en ts pr eface This book is the outcome of an intensive collaboration in- volving scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds, all drawing from their specific areas of expertise. The idea for the symposium from which this volume is compiled arose in the context of a workshop hosted by Anne-Marie Korte in December at Utrecht University and attended by Christiane Kruse and Birgit Meyer. The workshop was in- spired by Pussy Riot’s punk prayer in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral earlier that year. We concluded the time was ripe for situating the hotly debated phenomenon of of- fensive images in a broader thematic, interdisciplinary and cross-regional context. This opportunity was offered by the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel, which invited artists, anthropologists, art historians, philosophers, scholars of religious studies and theologians to participate in the symposium Offensive Pictures / Religion and Art in Glob- al Cultures from June – , . This event triggered lively debates among scholars, art school students and a broader audience. During the symposium, performance artist Leonid Kharlamov offered food for thought with his »photo-cakes« — a display of film stills from Pasolini’s Il Vangelo secondo Matteo and other Jesus-themed movies, followed by the perfor- mance of a baptism of a dog, based on Christian rites. The cakes were cut and consumed, the baptism witnessed on stage. These artistic acts were the subject of a round table dis- cussion about art, religion and blasphemy. pr eface This volume consists of revised versions of the presentations given during the symposium. The photo gallery in the middle of the volume captures the gathering’s animated atmosphere. The volume was designed by Louisa Kirchner and Belinda Ulrich, two master students in typography and book design. With the guidance of Prof. Annette Le Fort, they rendered the ensemble of texts and images into a com- pelling contribution to the ›dynamis‹ series by Fink Verlag. We would like to thank all the symposium partici pants for their willingness to rework their presentations into full- fledged essays. We are immensely grateful to Maike Schulken for organizing the symposium and supervising the pub- lication, Andrea Scrima for the translation of several German texts into English, Mitch Cohen for overall lan guage edit- ing, Alexa Dvorson for editing and proofreading, and Louisa Kirchner and Belinda Ulrich for designing the volume. The symposium and publication would not have been possible without the support of the Muthesius Uni versity of Fine Arts and Design, the Department of Philosophy and Reli- gious Studies at Utrecht University and the Religious Matters in an Entangled World Research Program funded by the Neth- erlands Foundation for Scientific Research ( nwo ) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( knaw ). Kiel and Utrecht, September Christiane Kruse, Birgit Meyer and Anne-Marie Korte introduction Introduction B I RG I T M E Y E R , C H R I S T I A N E K RU S E , A N N E - M A R I E KORT E In this era of digital multiplicity, images are reproduced at dazzling speed and spread instantly across the globe, yet they trigger vastly different responses. Images are not sim- ply depictions; they become visible to beholders in the con- text of embodied, habitual practices of looking, display, and figuration — a visual regime. In pluralistic settings characterized by cultural and religious diversity as well as the coexistence of religious and secular positions, various visual regimes compete, converge, and clash, giving rise to the phenomenon of offensive images. Recent tensions around purportedly offensive images and visual perfor- mances — from the commotion and violent conflicts around the Muhammad cartoons to the persecution of Pussy Riot — betray conflicting sensibilities, value sys- tems, and visual regimes with their specific taboos and pre- ferred modes of representation. Contemporary cultural settings are characterized by a diversity of participants and thus a concomitant coexistence of diverse visual regimes with their specific attitudes toward images that may easily clash. Unmistakable in these tensions is the presence of religion. On the one hand, recourse is taken to religious imagery that is recycled and remediated in, for instance, the spheres of art, advertising, and political protest. On the introduction other hand, religious leaders and followers vehemently criticize of the use and representation of their religious symbols by journalists, artists, and others. They frequent- ly articulate their offense to the display of particular images or the use of images in ways they say are unauthorized. This evokes heated debates about the limits of cultural representation: how can the relation between the regimes of visibility in art, journalism, politics, and religion be ne- gotiated in plural settings? With increasing global entanglements and the rapid spread of digital material, conflicts over images and the political aesthetics of cultural representation in a broader sense are likely to increase and accelerate. People embed- ded in different visual regimes coexist, so to speak, just a click away from one another. This volume explores ten- sions and debates about offensive images and performative practices in various settings in and beyond Europe. Its basic premise is that a deeper understanding of what is at stake in these tensions and debates calls for a multidisciplinary conversation. Its contributors include scholars in anthro- pology, (art) history, film studies, religious studies, theology, and the study of visual culture (Bildwissenschaft). The authors focus on images that appear to trigger strongly negative re- actions; images that are perceived as insulting or offensive; those subject to taboos and restrictions; or those that are condemned as blasphemous. In light of recurrent acts of violence leveled against images and symbols in the contem- introduction porary, globally entangled world, addressing instances of »iconoclash« from a new post-secular, global perspective has become a matter of urgency. What makes an image offensive? This is the central question addressed in this volume. Images are not offensive in and of themselves. Offense is a matter of attribution by people who feel disturbed or even disgusted and hurt by a visual form that others may overlook or cherish. Offensive- ness, in other words, is in the eyes of certain beholders to whom, paradoxically, the image in question appears to be more powerful and sensitive than for those displaying it in the context of art or journalism. To understand how of- fensiveness is generated, we need a deeper understanding of the relation between an image considered offensive and its offended beholders, as well as those who see no problem with that image. Differing attitudes toward images embed- ded in religious and secular frameworks entail a coexist ence of conflicting visual regimes. This coexistence ultimately challenges the dominant idea of modernity as entailing the decline of religion as a social and cultural force, raising ques- tions about the relation between religion, art, and visual culture at large. Clashes over images offer an apt entry point into the challenges facing coexistent, diverse identities and struggles over dominant politics of cultural representation. Inspired by recent developments in the study of visual cul- ture and German »Bildwissenschaft« as outlined by Christiane Kruse, this volume offers an explicit focus on religion, art, introduction and visual culture from a global perspective. To better grasp how a sense of an image being offensive arises and why an image is perceived as offensive, it is instructive to dis- tinguish between two dimensions of visual forms, as pointed out by Hans Belting: the »internal image« seen in an »external picture«. The internal image is not visible as such, but requires a medium through which the image is embodied. A picture acts as a medium, with its own par- ticular affordances, through which an internal image becomes visible.² Visibility is not given, but mediated through a picture that forms the body of an image. Where- as the German term »Bild« is employed to refer to both the internal image and the external picture, a distinction is sometimes made between picture and image in English.³ In this volume, most contributors, ourselves included, use the English word »image« in a broad generic sense, not limited to the internal image, but in the encompassing sense of the German term »Bild.« This means the distinc- tion between internal images and their external carriers is taken into account in the analysis, but not necessarily rendered in words. The translation of insights from German »Bildwissenschaft« to the study of visual culture calls for further reflection regarding adequate vocabulary. We feel that the distinction between picture and image, in the strict context of vocabulary, may come across as somewhat artificial. At the same time, this distinction is certainly revealing in regard to certain questions, as explored in introduction Christiane Kruse’s theoretical reflection about what makes pictures strong and powerful (Chapter ); and in Christoph Baumgartner’s philosophical assessment of the question- able existence of offensive pictures (Chapter ). This volume is adapted from presentations during a symposium held in June at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel . In the process of preparing for the event and working on this volume, we considered a pro vocative image for the cover to evoke the notion of of- fense. It would have been easy, for instance, to use pictures condemned as »blasphemous« in current debates, such as the Danish Muhammad cartoons or numerous crucifixion scenes that substitute the body of Jesus with a horse, a frog, or the like. However, we realized that the use of such bla- tantly »offensive images« would be too facile because the decision to display them would presuppose a secular stand- point that infers such a choice would be entirely unprob- lematic. It is precisely this »so what?« approach that would gloss over the very issue of offensiveness this volume seeks to unpack. In other words, as scholars, we need to adopt a self-critical stance regarding the framework that in forms our approach to images, rather than taking it for granted. It is much easier to represent images that are offensive to others than those that offend oneself. In the course of our search, we realized it would be impossible to find the one »offensive image« that would be recognized as such by all authors and the people about whom they write. introduction We ultimately decided on an empty frame that could serve as a kind of screen onto which diverse images that offend people could be projected. In this way, the designation of images as offensive from different standpoints can be ana- lyzed from a comparative perspective so as to discern an »anatomy of offense,« as Jojada Verrips explains in his chap- ter. The contributions to this volume project a broad set of images that generate a sense of offense in particular set- tings. In the first chapter, Christiane Kruse analyzes three examples of »powerful« images — Chris Ofili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary as well as photographic representations of Conchita Wurst and Angela Merkel — so as to explore the processes through which images become attractive and offensive. The next eight chapters investigate the pro- voking of offense and the ensuing debates and conflicts in particular settings. Nika Spalinger looks at contempo- rary performance art in Switzerland (Chapter ). Norbert M. Schmitz explores the heresy enshrined in the work of Pasolini (Chapter ). Anne-Marie Korte offers a feminist theological reading of Madonna’s crucifixion scene in her Confessions on a Dance Floor performance (Chapter ). Simon O’Meara discusses the role of the Kaaba as a world-orga- nizing perspective and the ensuing consequences of its un- authorized visual reproduction for Muslims (Chapter ). Monica Juneja unpacks the charges leveled by conservative Hindus against what they perceive as an illicit appropria- introduction tion of Hindu imagery by the Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain (Chapter ). Maru š ka Sva š ek investigates the of- fense taken by the same group against Wendy Doniger’s book Hindus: An Alternative History for misappropriating Krishna imagery (Chapter ). Tania Becker analyzes the offense created by highly transgressive Chinese perfor- mance art (Chapter ). Jürgen Wasim Frembgen & Asif Jehangir investigate popular film posters considered »dirty« by devout Muslims in Pakistan (Chapter ). The last three chapters address broader conceptual issues pertaining to »offensive images.« Jojada Verrips points to genres of im- agery — regarding sex, the sacred, and death — that are liable to function as »existential neuralgic points« and pro- poses ways to analyze the genesis of offense from a socio- logical perspective (Chapter ). Christoph Baumgartner asks whether it can be reasonably argued that offensive pic- tures exist (Chapter ). Finally, Birgit Meyer offers some concluding thoughts about the volume as a whole, address- ing the relation between art and religion, the emergence of a sense of offense, and the ethics and aesthetics of plural societal configurations. introduction 1 Br u no L atou r : W hat is a n Iconoc la sh? Or is t here a World Be yond Image Wa rs? in Br u no Latou r / Peter Weibel (eds.): Iconoclash, vol. , ZK M K a rlsr u he a nd M I T Ca mbr idge/ Mass. , pp. – . 2 »T he pic t u re is t he i ma ge w it h a med iu m,« a s H a ns B e lt i ng s t ate s i n A n A nt h r opolog y of I m a g e s: P ic - tu re, Mediu m, Body, Pr inceton , p. . 3 Wi l l ia m J.T. M itc hel l: Fou r Fu nd a ment a l C oncepts of Image Science, in Ja mes Elk ins (ed.): Visua l Litera- c y, Ne w York , pp. -; see a lso Bau mga r t ner in t his volu me. Offending Pictures. What Makes Images Powerful Christiane K ruse [ fig. 1] Chris Ofili: The Holy Virgin Mary, private collection, (Fig. ) The painting depicts in linear, flat terms a woman of color wearing a blue garment and surrounded by leaf ornaments against a gold background. The schematic drawing of the woman’s face enlarges and bloats the facial features of an African ethnicity. At the height of the figure’s breast, a small cylindrical el- ement ending in three concentric circles breaks through the surface. The golden ground with the starburst surrounding her face is reminiscent of icons or me- dieval paintings of saints. Small flesh-colored, bulbous visual components are scattered over the surface in irregular fashion. Some of them are shaped like flowers, while others recall beetles and caterpillars. A closer look reveals that the forms are in fact photographs of female genitals glued onto the painting. The work is propped on two clumps; on the left clump the word »Holy« can be read, on the right the word »Virgin.« Offending Images In his book with the provocative title What Do Pictures Want? , William Thomas Mitchell dedicates a chapter to »the nature of offending images.« Mitchell lists an entire set of criteria that suffice for a picture to qualify as offensive. Offensiveness is often effected by the specific objects that materialize an image, while represen- tations of the sacred are especially suited to the purpose. Mitchell demonstrates that pictures have the power to provoke and even insult their viewers. Not infre- quently, this provocation ends in a picture’s destruction. The reason for this, as Mitchell sees it, is that pictures are treated as pseudo-persons. A magical power is ascribed to them; they embody a pseudo-life or aliveness. According to Mitchell, the magical power that pictures seem to have doesn’t fit in with our enlightened world, but has its origins in superstition, in religious communities, and in »primi- tive cultures.« For this reason, pictorial magic belongs to an earlier stage of civili- zation. In his study, Mitchell seeks to demonstrate that seemingly archaic, superstitious notions that were long considered overcome survive in visual ar- tifacts and induce viewers to treat pictures as living beings. People who remove pictures, who ›punish‹ them through defacement, or who seek to destroy them in an act of violence are acting within this »primitive« stage of civi lization. According to Mitchell, offending pictures are often located on the »frontlines of social and political conflict.« From the Byzantine iconoclasm of the th century to the destruction of the Twin Towers or, more recently in , the destruction of a temple in Palmyra at the hands of IS militants, politically or religiously motivated iconoclastic acts have always taken place and always will. Moreover, art has often unwittingly or, in the avant-garde movements of the th century, deliberately pro- voked offense with shocking pictures. Mitchell lists twelve examples from art and visual history ranging from the ancient portrait of the Emperor Nero to Damien Hirst’s This Little Pigg y Went to Market , and he distills from them four »obvious points« of the offending picture that are primarily intended to support his thesis of the living image. First, the offending quality of images is contingent on com- plex social contexts that, when changed, can rehabilitate the incriminated image. Second, images can be considered offensive for very different »offenses:« these can be political, religious, or moral in nature. Third, offensive images can even be prohibited by law and can lead to court cases. Fourth, the degree of icono- clasm varies from injury to destruction, or can simply mean the concealment of an image. Pre-existing Attitude in the Viewer To my mind, Mitchell’s thesis that the offending nature of pictures derives from a primitive belief in their aliveness seems too one-sided, not consistently thought through to its conclusion, inasmuch as he remains uninterested in the comple- mentary question that draws closer to the pictures and our dealings with them: why does a picture offend one viewer, to the point that he or she wishes to de- stroy it, while another viewer remains entirely indifferent to it? Let’s take the example of the painting that I described above: The Holy Virgin Mary by the British artist Chris Ofili (Fig. ). Mitchell presents the scandal the painting caused in the exhibition Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum () as proof of his liv- ing image thesis. A prominent and influential viewer of pictures, the New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, called it »sick stuff« and ordered the museum’s fund- ing to be cut. Dennis Heiner, a retired teacher, took advantage of an unguarded moment in the Brooklyn Museum to cover the painting in white latex paint in an effort to eliminate the image he found scandalous. (Fig. ). Museum staff, arguing from the perspective of art’s autonomy, were horrified by the iconoclas- tic act and hastened to restore the painting to its original condition. The exhibi- tion had opened in the London Royal Academy, traveled to Berlin (Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart), and was subsequently shown at the Brook- lyn Museum in New York — and it was only there that it caused a scandal. The catalyst, according to Mitchell, was the artistic material of elephant dung, con- sidered inappropriate for the subject matter. The cylindrical naked »breast« of The Holy Virgin Mary is made from a lump of elephant dung, with a nipple stuck on top (Fig. ). The entire painting rests on two more clumps of the same material