Jots & Tittles
Jesus Gets a Millennial Makeover
Imagining Jesus, said Albert Schweitzer, is analogous to peering into a deep, dark well: Each generation sees its own reflection and utters the word “Lord.” In that spirit, the National Catholic Reporter, a Catholic newsweekly, is challenging artists worldwide to reimagine Jesus for the new millennium.
A $2,000 prize and a spot on the cover of the magazine awaits the winner, who must face the winnowing fan of a three-member jury and Sister Wendy Beckett (see photo), a 69-year-old British nun who hosts a television show on art.
What sorts of images will catch the judges’ eyes? All visual media are welcome: watercolor and oil paintings, sculpture, stained glass, silk screens, even computer art and photographs. Novelty is encouraged: “Until our time, this was the most popular subject for artists,” Michael Farrell, editor of the Reporter, told the Associated Press. “If you are giving us a repeat of any of those images, it’s not likely that you are on the winning ticket. There ought to be something new that we have never seen before.”
Farrell thinks much of the hype surrounding the onset of the new millennium is misplaced. “Ask anybody about the millennium, and they talk about survivalists going into the mountains or glitches on their computers. Nobody is talking about this extraordinary man who came from heaven 2,000 years ago.”
Artists should send slides of their work and a $20 entry fee to the National Catholic Reporter by October 18. Details are available on the magazine’s Web site: http://www.natcath.com.
Y2K Inspires Museum Exhibits
As the millennium draws near, museums in Jerusalem are preparing commemorative exhibitions to celebrate Israel as the birthplace of Christianity.
An unusual display at the Israel Museum, In the Path of Christianity, showcases the museum’s collection of Christian art, archaeology and ethnography. Rather than grouping the artifacts in one exhibit hall, the museum has left them in place throughout the museum, allowing visitors to see them in context with contemporaneous (often non-Christian) finds. Special wall labels help visitors in identifying the objects and explain each artifact’s relevance to Christianity. Highlights of the long-term exhibit (it will continue to 2001) include an inscription from Caesarea that mentions Pontius Pilate, the ossuary of Caiaphas (the high priest who interrogated Jesus before handing him over to the Romans) and the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the museum’s Shrine of the Book.
The museum is also hosting several related exhibitions, including Knights of the Holy Land: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (July 1999–January 2000), which commemorates the 900th anniversary of the first crusade; Cradle of Christianity (April–November 2000), which relates the story of Christianity through significant artifacts; and Landscape of the Bible: Old and New Testament Themes in European Master Painting (August–December 2000), which features biblical landscapes by European masters.
Just across the street, Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum is marking the onset of the new millennium with Images of Inspiration: The Old Testament in Early Christian Art (January 2000–January 2001). The exhibit will explore how Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Abraham and Isaac, Samson, David, Solomon, Jonah, and other Old Testament favorites served as a source of inspiration to artists during Christianity’s infancy. The artworks are drawn from an array of international museums, including the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Staatliche Museen (State Museums) of Berlin, and the Princeton and Yale University collections.