REL 163 - Religion and the Arts

Maureen Korp lectures on the history of art and the history of religions at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. She is also a lecturer in the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul’s University, Ottawa, and has taught in Romania and the United States in faculties of history, visual arts, and religion. Between 1995-1996, she was a senior lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Romania. Professor Korp’s most applauded book is Sacred Art of the Earth. (Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997) She is the author of numerous articles and chapters in anthologies (most recently is “The Underlying Terror,” an American anthology regarding the events of September 11, edited by Philip Tite and Bryan Rennie, for which Professor Korp wrote a chapter called “Seeing what is Missing: Art, Artists and September 11”). She is also an independent curator. “Lines of Descent,” an exhibition of contemporary work last fall in Ottawa was much praised. It broke every attendance record at the city’s Karsh-Masson Gallery. The exhibition explored the theme of immigration and lost stories in the religious art of four Canadian and American artists.

Professor Korp will present classes on:

SEEING THE EARTH
Presented initially at a Unesco symposium in Paris discussing the question “could traditional sacred places tell us anything about the ecological health of the surrounding region?” Professor Korp answered “yes: but first you have to be able to SEE these 'unspoiled places,' and for that we need the artists." The work of three artists is presented: Betsy Damon in China (who designed and built a garden that cleans filthy river water) Robin Campbell in Japan (saving sacred mountains); Kathy Gillis in Ontario (mapping lost sacred places).The opening sentences of her presentatin are: “Sacred places—‘built’ or ‘natural’—can be described in terms of physical setting not just in terms of psychological affect, cultural meanings, or history of the site’s guardianship. All experiences of sacred place take place some place.”

WAITING AND WATCHING: VISUAL ARTISTS AND THEIR VISIONS
This presents the work of eight or nine artists in the context of their own statements about what they say they are doing when they are working. The opening paragraph: “In Kyoto, Japan, Canadian artist Robin Campbell gently marks the earth in a series of site-specific ceramic installations she calls, “Prayers for the well-being of mountains and their forests.” In India, Irish artist Marie Foley confects small meditative sculptures of porcelain and bog oak. They are memories of prayers she offered during pilgrimages in country Donegal. In San Francisco, American artist Lucy Arai stitches, hour after hour, as much as 12 hours at a time, in her studio. She is practicing, the artist says, a “highly religious meditation in which nature reveals itself to me.”

On Thursday, February 24th Prof. Korp will give a public lecture on "The Soul's Journey: Constantin Brancusi's Great Vision." 6:30pm in the Mueller Theatre in the McKelvey Student Center.

The Endless Column by Constantin Brancusi (1876-1956) is perhaps the best-known feature of a war memorial complex that the sculptor designed in 1935-1938 for the town of Targu Jiu high in the Carpathian mountains of western Romania. The column has recently been restored. It does not, however, stand alone. The Endless Column is part of an extensive installation which is the embodiment of a mythic tale--the story of the soul's journey after death to the sun to be reborn. It is thus a singularly appropriate topic for a consideration of the relation of art and religion.

Photograph of the Endless Column taken by Maureen Korp
Background Image by John Winstanly, copyright 2004.