The sculpture in the photo above is called "The Creation of Adam" by St Louis artist Philip Hitchcock. It is, of course, based on the famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, arguably the most inspired work of art in the history of Western Civilization (see photo below).Hitchcock's work was on display at a public art center in St. Charles, across the Missouri River, west of St. Louis. It was there for about two weeks, and was supposed to be moved to another public display along the St. Charles riverfront. The artist has withdrawn the work from exhibit, however, and moved it to a gallery in downtown St. Louis.
Why? Because person or persons unknown kept covering up Adam's manhood! Guess our friend Steve will not be doing his version of "A Picture of Dorian Gray" over there any time soon!
Here's my question of the day: Is covering up Adam's schlong the equivalent of heresy by textile? Few things could be clearer in the Bible than Adam was naked. If you are denying that Adam was naked are you denying that the Bible is literally true? Before you start quoting the Ten Commandments to me, remember that the couturier was covering Adam not the depiction of The Father.
4 comments:
I do not know if it is heritical but it is certainly prudish. Or a bad case of penis envy.
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fun thought: whoever is covering up Adam in St. Charles goes to ROME!
Very prudish - but I do believe the artist removed it in order to create a ton of publicity for himself, which is what happened. None of the art officials ever complained, nor contacted Hitchcock about his work. So I think he removed it out in haste in order to create an art controversy.
Secondly, the bible is not literally true. To think we all came from one Adam and Eve is absurd. So did either of their son then have sex with their mother? That would have to have occured if you took the bible literally.
Not to get too biblical, but there are just TONS of biblical errors and absurdities. Like God literally wrestling, the physical measurements of Noah's ark being large enough to house 2 of every animal, and the New Gospel Testaments...Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give absolutely different versions of the same thing (i.e. Christ's ressurection).
To take the bible literally is to say that God has a faulty memeory. In one version, for example, the stone covering Jesus' tomb is still in place. In another gospel, it's moved. In yet another one, there's an angel inside. Another gospel writer says the tomb is empty.
OK - I'm going back to the topic now. It's too bad some goofball out there was covering up Adam's manhood. Personally, I think it was a joke and not public censorship.
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While I was waiting for Blogger to fix itself, I was watching a TV show about the Book of Judas. One of the things that caught my attention was that there were at one time 30 Gospels only four were chosen based on this explanation:
It is impossible that the Gospels should be in number either more or fewer than these. For since there are four regions of the world wherein we are, and four principal winds, and the Church is as seed sown in the whole earth, and the Gospel is the Church's pillar and ground, and the breath of life: it is natural that it should have four pillars, from all quarters breathing incorruption, and kindling men into life. Whereby it is evident, that the Artificer of all things, the Word, who sitteth upon the Cherubim, and keepeth all together, when He was made manifest unto men, gave us His Gospel in four forms, kept together by one Spirit. ... For indeed the Cherubim had four faces, and their faces are images of the dispensation of the Son of God. ... For the Living Creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel also is quadriform. [Emphasis added.]
I like a good logical argument!
As for Adam, I don't know if was a publicity stunt. Moving from St. Charles to St. Louis Centre does not seem like a step up to me -- I actually thought St. Louis Centre was closed.
The statue (along with seven others) will have a limited showing at Art Dimensions CentreGallery in the Saint Louis Center on Washington and 7th. The work will be on view noon until 4:00 pm, Wednesday through Sunday, April 26, through May 6, 2006. Meet the artist at a champagne reception Friday, May 5th, 7:00 to 11:00 pm.
Philip Hitchcock
Wow, Jim, did you email the artist to tell him you were blogging about his piece, or did he just find you? You seem to have quite a knack for actually getting the subjects of your blogs to visit! :-)
love meagan
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whenever I mention someone on the blog, I always send an email if I can find an address -- since most of the posts are me being silly, I tell the person that I will remove the post if he or she objects -- the artist responded via email this morning but I could not edit the post because of the Blogger problems this morning, but it let me add his message as a comment (although that did not appear until hours later) --
-- artistic people (Philip Hitchcock, Steve Coombs, etc.) usually respond with a message of some sort -- others just give me permission to use their photographs (the Russians in the icy water for example) -- a few I keep in contact with via email -- from the server logs I can usually figure out if someone I have sent an email to has looked at the blog, most look but then never reply
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