Divine Ammunition: The Art of Al Farrow

A sliver of white is lifted above a platform below a small dome surmounted by a tiny cupola. The dome is supported by four columns. At least that is what I think I see from across the museum gallery. A closer look brings a sudden shock: the white sliver is bone, a human finger. The finger’s platform is constructed out of bullets and shells, the dome and cupola covered with shotgun pellets and the columns are pistol barrels, with the pistols still attached.

            According to the label, the finger belongs to “Santo Guerro”, a purposeful misnaming of an imaginary “Saint of War.” (Or does it mean Saint Blondie?) But the odd name is less important than my reaction upon viewing the image.

            Questions race through my brain. Is it sacrilege to surround a saint with weaponry? Is there a message here, something beyond the observation that most saints died through violence? Why do I feel my gut turn?

            Not answering my questions, I move on…and immediately run into the reliquary of Santo Guerro’s skull, lying in a glass box on top of a pile of empty 30-06 rifle shells. The skull’s unhinged grin mocks the serious character of its bed.

            Before the two reliquaries stands a model of a large Gothic cathedral. It is made mostly from ammunition, intricately put together. The child in me who loved models is attracted like a magnet; without thinking I spend 5 fascinated minutes examining the doors and walls of shells, the soaring towers framed by rifle barrels, and the flying buttresses made from gun stocks.

            I check the museum guide, expecting a name like Trinity Cathedral or some other name of a cathedral city. Instead it says, “The Spine and the Tooth of Santo Guerro.” Spine? What spine? I haven’t seen a spine, let alone a tooth. Wait, there it is. In the shadows within the cathedral. The model too is a reliquary.

            I start looking at the other models of sacred structures: synagogues, churches, mosques and mausoleums. I find a Bible open to the book of Revelation in a church, a Torah scroll cover in a synagogue model. The Muslim mausoleums contain tombs. They are all reliquaries.

            It is often difficult to interpret art, to find its meaning. But one point is clear, the images are of the sacred and holy (saints’ remains, sacred texts and accoutrements) contained within the symbols of violence, ammunition and weapons of death.

            Even the models of Muslim mausoleums fit the pattern, for mausoleums usually contain the remains of holy men (sort of like Christian saints). Some forms of Islam, like the Saudi’s Wahhabism, vehemently deny that Muslims can be saints, be holy men, and that they can be revered after death. Indeed, they frequently enforce that denial at the point of a gun.

            Al Farrow’s artworks clearly juxtapose violence and the sacred. But what is the message?  He won’t say, so its remains unclear.

            What is clear, however, is that the exhibit grabs your attention. It may not provide answers, but the viewers certainly raise the question and discuss it among themselves. I often found myself across a piece from a stranger, pointing out features and debating with each other.

            Are religions violent? Are they victims of violence?

            The exhibit also contains three full-size doors (constructed of ammunition and gun parts) of religious structures: a mosque, a church and a synagogue. Each one is presented with graffiti and other violence enacted upon it. Perhaps the message is that religions visit violence upon each other. Hmmm.

            Al Farrow’s exhibit, Divine Ammunition, will be at the UW Art Museum in Laramie, WY until December 16, 2017.

Artist Al Farrow’s “The Skull of Santo Guerro II,” a reliquary of an imagined saint, evokes both violence and the sacred. The skull rests on a bed of spent rifle shells. Farrow’s “Divine Ammunition” exhibition is on view at the UW Art Museum through Dec. 16. (Paul Flesher Photo)

           

The Plain Cathedrals

I often visit religious buildings and sacred sites when I travel. On a recent trip to England, I toured the cathedrals at Canterbury and Durham. Canterbury Cathedral has been the premiere cathedral of the English church since the 12th century and the center of the Anglican Church since its founding in the 16th century. Durham may be the most picturesque cathedral in Britain; situated atop a hill in a bend on the river Wear, it dominates the surrounding countryside.

The exterior of each cathedral impresses the viewer with its majesty and the imperial character of its architecture. But upon entering, one is struck with a sense of emptiness. The interiors are quite plain, emphasizing the soaring architecture, but seemingly without further decoration. This is because the present decoration of these buildings results from the transformation of English Christianity from Catholic to Protestant.

The cathedrals of Canterbury and Durham were built about the same time. The present Canterbury cathedral was erected between 1067 and 1077. Durham’s cathedral was begun in 1093 and completed over the next 40 years. Both cathedrals formed the center of a monastery and both contain the tomb of a saint. They, thus, became important pilgrimage destinations. St. Thomas Beckett lies at Canterbury and St. Cuthbert at Durham.

As monastery, pilgrimage center, bishop’s seat and place of worship for the community, each cathedral received a great deal of decoration in the decades and centuries after their construction. Their current plainness is not reflective of their early history.

While we know little about these cathedrals’ furnishings, a comparison with cathedrals that still retain their medieval character is suggestive. The basilicas of Italy, for example, remain ornate. The walls and ceilings of the older basilicas in Rome, for example, are decorated with statuary, carvings and paintings; the Bergamo basilica is covered with paintings and woven tapestries, while the interior of Venice’s St. Mark’s Basilica is covered with gold mosaics from floor to ceiling. All of these cathedrals have extensive collections of silver and gold candlesticks, offering plates and other liturgical items --often encrusted with valuable jewels.

While it is unlikely there was much gold artwork at Canterbury and Durham, it is likely that they had many paintings, statuary and tapestries, along with many valuable liturgical utensils. In Durham, there are a few shadowy remains of artistic scenes on the wall, indicating it was once covered with large, colorful murals. So, rather than being plain and empty in their early centuries, the Cathedrals of Canterbury and Durham were crowded with artistic and religious items serving the needs of the cathedrals’ varied constituencies.

So, how did these cathedrals become so plain?

In the 1520s, King Henry VIII could not get an heir, and so he asked the Pope to annul his marriage so that he could (hopefully) marry a more fertile woman. The Pope refused. In response, Henry withdrew his country from the Catholic Church in 1534 and created the Church of England, with himself as head. By 1536, Henry realized the enormous wealth the church controlled and began to appropriate it for the crown. In 1538, he ordered St. Thomas’ shrine in Canterbury destroyed and its vast hoard of treasure and gifts confiscated. In 1539, both Canterbury and Durham monasteries, and their cathedrals, were closed. The cathedrals were reestablished in 1541.

Henry’s actions began the despoliation of the two cathedrals and, by the end of the 16th century, most of their medieval furnishings were gone. Anything that remained at Durham into the 17th century was destroyed in 1650 when the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell used the cathedral as a prison for 3,000 Scottish soldiers. Other cathedrals and monasteries across England and Wales were treated similarly.

Although the treatment of these monasteries and cathedrals in Henry’s time, and afterward, was essentially looting, the resulting plain look of the cathedrals fit well with the growing influence of Puritan theology in the now-Protestant Church of England. Puritans desired to “purify” the English church of what they considered to be the mistakes inherited from the Catholic Church. One of these mistakes was the widespread use of art in places of worship, which made them seem “idolatrous,” the Puritans believed. So, once the cathedrals and churches became plain, they were left that way until modern times.