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As part of this Royal Academy and TMVA collaboration, three artists – Rebecca Saltar, Christopher le Brun, and Stephen Farthing – met with Tim Marlow to discuss the role of Christianity in their lives and work (scroll below to listen to these interviews).
In July 2018 Dr Rowan Williams and Sir Antony Gormley RA discussed the relationship of modern and contemporary visual art and Christian tradition, in a conversation chaired by Tim Marlow, hosted at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Royal Academician and creator of the Angel of the North, Antony Gormley is one of the best known contemporary British artists. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, is a prominent theologian and poet, with a strong interest in the visual arts. In conversation with Tim Marlow, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy, their discussion explored Christian influences on contemporary art, the rewards and challenges of exhibiting art in churches, and how the conversation between Christianity and contemporary art might develop.
This public event was part of a four-year research project on the topic of Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts, led by Professor Ben Quash at King’s College London, in collaboration with Duke University, and generously sponsored by the McDonald Agape Foundation. Its purpose is to enquire into a theological reading of modernity in the company of visual artists, asking how the visual arts can help us to understand the theological (or even anti-theological) currents of modernity more deeply. Theology, Modernity, and the Visual Arts is part of a larger enterprise (Theology, Modernity and the Arts) established by Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, which is undertaking research in three main areas: music, the visual arts, and literature.
Speakers
Sir Antony Gormley, RA
Born in London in 1950, Antony Gormley has had a number of solo shows at venues including the Forte di Belvedere, Florence (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Hayward Gallery, London; Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Malmö Konsthall; and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen. Major public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA). He has also participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale and Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany. Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a member of the Royal Academy since 2003. He was made an Officer of the British Empire in 1997 and knighted in 2014.
The Rt Rev. and the Rt Hon. the Lord Williams of Oystermouth
Dr Rowan Williams was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and Christ Church and Wadham Colleges, Oxford, and was ordained a priest in 1978. He held positions at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, at Westcott House, and at the University of Cambridge, before being appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in Oxford aged 36. He became Bishop of Monmouth in 1992, Archbishop of Wales in 2000, and the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002. In 2013, he took up the mastership of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was also made a life peer in that year. Dr Williams is a prominent theologian and a noted poet and translator of poetry. He has written on a wide range of theological, historical, political and artistic subjects, including studies of Arius, Teresa of Avila, Sergei Bulgakov, and Dostoevsky, and is the author of Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love (2005).
Tim Marlow
Tim Marlow joined the Royal Academy of Arts in 2014 as Artistic Director. His remit includes the RA’s exhibition and events programme, as well as the RA Collection, Learning, Architecture and Publishing. Prior to this Marlow was Director of Exhibitions at White Cube (2003-2014). He has worked with many of the most important and influential artists of our time including, Antony Gormley RA, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume RA, Anselm Kiefer Hon RA, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Chuck Close, Tracey Emin RA, Gilbert & George, Julie Mehretu and Doris Salcedo. Marlow is an award- winning radio and television broadcaster who has presented over 100 documentaries on British television. He was the founder editor of Tate magazine and is the author of numerous books and catalogues. He has lectured, chaired and participated in panel discussions on art and culture in more than forty countries.
Artist interviews
As part of the collaboration in 2018 between the Royal Academy (RA) and Theology, Modernity and the Visual Arts, the Artistic Director of the RA, Tim Marlow, interviewed three Royal Academicians about the relationship between contemporary art and the sacred. In three very different conversations, Rebecca Saltar, Christopher le Brun, and Stephen Farthing discuss the role of Christianity in their lives and work.
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Interview: Rebecca Salter Rebecca Salter and Tim Marlow discuss the influence of her childhood as an Anglican vicar’s daughter on her appreciation of sacred space, and her explorations of Japanese aesthetics and abstract expressions of time and space. |
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Interview: Christopher le Brun Christopher le Brun and Tim Marlow consider the cultural inheritance of Christianity, recent interest in the sacred in contemporary art, le Brun’s commissions for Liverpool Cathedral, and the embarrassment and ambiguity that can appear in attitudes to both art and spiritual matters. |
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Interview: Stephen Farthing Stephen Farthing and Tim Marlow consider the legacy of Christianity in modern and post-modern art, the nature of the miraculous, and the suspension of disbelief in the face of intense faith. |
