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Abstract
Three installations of the “Stations of the Cross,” established as stational urban exhibitions across London, Washington, D.C., and New York in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (respectively), are the focus of this article, which examines the significance of the Via Dolorosa in Western culture and the role that visual media embodying this sacred topography have played in pre-modern and contemporary Western societies. It studies the contemporary installations in relation to sixteenth-century trend of superimposing the Via Dolorosa upon Western towns, and shows that the contemporary installations used the paradigm of the fourteen stations to contextualize themes that are entirely unrelated to Jerusalem or the Gospels but are highly significant within twenty-first-century Western cultural discourse. It discusses the way in which these installations bridged the gap between religious and secular worldviews in a post-secular age, studying them as a form of post-secular art.
Acknowledgements
I thank Aaron Rosen for assisting me with photographs and for sharing a draft of his new article with me before its publication. I’m also grateful to Mark Doox, Michael Takeo Magruder, Edward Guarino and the Bibliothèque de l’INHA for providing me with photographs of the artworks. My thanks extend to the anonymous readers and to the editor, Andrew Coates, whose comments and advices significantly enriched this article and helped me sharpen the argument.
Notes
1 Stations of the Cross, Coexist House, http://www.coexisthouse.org.uk/stations2016.html.
2 Stations of the Cross, Coexist House, https://www.coexisthouse.org.uk/stations2016.html. The description of the project has been reformulated on the project’s new website: ‘About’, Stations of the Cross, Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/stations-of-the-cross.
3 The quotation is cited from the description of Station Ten, https://www.coexisthouse.org.uk/artists-and-places.html.
4 All five installations are represented on the project’s new website, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/stations-of-the-cross
5 On the phenomenon of replicating the Via Dolorosa in Europe, see Beaver Citation2013, esp. 60–66.
6 It should be stressed that the practice of replicating Jerusalem’s sacred topography in the West continued beyond the sixteenth century. The Way of the Cross complex existing today in Romans-sur-Isère is a nineteenth-century reconstruction, which itself reflects the continued significance of the genre in European society. The American replicas—theme parks representing the landscape (and the narrative) of biblical-era Holy Land/Jerusalem—have, since the beginning of the nineteenth century, been established with the intention “to entertain as much as enlighten” (Vogel Citation1993, 1); for the shapes and the cultural significations of these parks, see also Davis Citation1992, Long Citation2003, Wharton Citation2006.
7 A concise overview of the concept of ‘post-secular age’/ ‘post-secular society’, in which religious communities are quite present in the life of societies that are largely secularized and in which religion maintains a public influence and relevance with reference to political and cultural issues, is given in Habermas Citation2008.
8 Another example of a contemporary work of art that utilized the concept of the Holy Land to confront a current social issue (in this case, immigration) is the 2006 installation Holy Land by Kader Attia.
9 ‘About’, Stations of the Cross, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/stations-of-the-cross
10 On the Stations project as a form of liminal pilgrimage, see Rosen 2021, Wijnia Citation2020. For the theory of pilgrimage as a liminal experience, see Turner and Turner Citation1978, 1–39; for some critiques of the Turners’ model of liminality, see Dubisch and Winkelman Citation2005, xiii–xiv.
11 It is worth noting that the formula of the fourteen stations is also exhibited in every Roman Catholic church, what means that the Stations project inherently reflects this Western tradition as well.
12 For the location of stations of each installation, including photographs of all artworks and explanations on their association with particular stations and with moral issues, see the project’s website, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/stations-of-the-cross
13 For further photographs, see the artist’s website: http://www.takeo.org/nspace/2016-lamentation-for-the-forsaken/.
14 The Pope visited Turin on 24 May 1988. The quotation in English is from the Vatican website, ‘Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II’, La Santa Sede, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/travels/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_24051998_sindone.html.
15 Station Six, the New York Installation, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/newyork-2018
16 Quotation taken from the description of Station Nine on the project’s website/app, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/washington-2017
17 Quotation taken from the description of Station Thirteen on the project’s website/app, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/london-2016
18 It should be emphasized that only part of these artworks were created specifically for the Stations project, what means that they were inspired from the scriptural narrative of the Passion, not necessarily from the concept of the Via Dolorosa.
19 As described on the project’s website/app. See Station Ten, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/newyork-2018
20 For a photograph of Abu Ghraib 73, see Station Twelve, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/washington-2017
21 Email interview with Mark Doox, December 2020. Doox elaborates on the meanings of Our Lady of Ferguson in relation to social justice in America in https://religionnews.com/2020/06/24/the-n-word-of-god-envisioning-the-image-of-christ/; MarkDoox.com
22 Email interview with Michael Takeo Magruder, December 2020.
23 This meaning and question are pronounced in the project’s website/app, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/london-2016
24 Quotation taken from the description of Station Six in the project’s website, https://www.luceartsandreligion.org/london-2016
25 The text was published by Fière Citation1913. For a digital scan of the entire book, see https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/viewer/26756/?offset=3#page=17&viewer=thumb&o=bookmark&n=0&q= .
27 Yet, by containing music and links to different websites, the app enriched the key data.
28 “Premierment estre venue en ladicte ville de romans il faludra aller au mont de Syon en la Chappelle ou oratoire de la cene et la dire loraison qui sensuyt [.…] Au partir de la cene on se transportera contrebas au val de Josaphat passant par le torent cedron pour aller en gethsemani ou Jesuchrist laissa huyt de ses apostres et dira len loraison qui sensuyt…” (my translation).
29 Quotation from ‘Changing Stations: An Interview with Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London’, Calvium, 12 April 2018, https://calvium.com/changing-stations-an-interview-with-ben-quash-professor-of-christianity-and-the-arts-at-kings-college-london/.
30 Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pnina Arad
Pnina Arad received her PhD in visual studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2012). Arad’s research interests include issues dealing with visual conceptualizations of sacred topographies. She has published her studies on visual imagery and maps of the Holy Land in The Art Bulletin, Viator and Imago Mundi. Her book Christian Maps of the Holy Land: Images and Meanings has been published by Brepols in 2020.[email protected]