An exhibition by a Zimbabwean-born artist who is now working in Scotland has caused huge offence to Christians throughout the world, Trevor Grundy reports:The exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow opened on 25 June and is scheduled to end on 22 August. On show, as part of series of exhibitions focusing on human rights, was a Bible and a container of pens and a notice saying: If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.
The exhibit costing anything between 7,000 to 10,000 of taxpayers money – was meant to be a way people who feel marginalized by society and the churches could express themselves, Jane Clarke, a minister of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) which caters mainly for the spiritual and religious needs of gay men and lesbian women, told journalists.
Insulting comments
But instead of names and gentle comments by the so-called marginalized, some members of the public wrote insulting comments including f..k the Bible Jesus is a bisexual This is all sexist pishand next to the Book of Genesis I am bi(sexual), female and proud. I want no God who is disappointed in this.
The Bible should never be used like that, Ms Clarke said. It was our intention to reclaim it as a sacred text. The exhibition had been created by two artists, Anthony Schrag and David Malone in association with organizations representing Gay Christians and Muslims.
Mr Schrag, 35, was born in Zimbabwe but brought up in the Middle East and Canada.
He is the gallerys artist in residence. He said that he had been fascinated by the idea of encouraging marginalized people to participate in an exhibit that celebrated racial, cultural, linguistic, gender and theological diversity.
But after reporters picked up on what was being scrawled across the pages of one of the worlds most sacred and venerated books, Christians expressed their outrage.
Now until the exhibition ends the Bible has been lifted up and placed in a perspex container so it can be seen but not touched. Viewers and the marginalized will be given pieces of blank white paper where they can register their names, their feelings about religion and the Bible and their complaints about society without further defacing the Holy Book.
Pope disgusted
Great anger has also been expressed about a video at the same exhibition showing a woman eating pages of the Bible and tearing pages from it and sticking them down her knickers and into her bra.
Complaints have been sent to Mark ONeill, Head of Arts and Museum at Culture and Sport Glasgow, an independent charity that manages most of Scotlands art galleries and museums, by Roman Catholics, Methodists, members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Muslims and Jews.
The Daily Telegraph (30 July) reported that news of the Glasgow exhibition had even reached the ears of the Pope who, said the paper, has condemned it as disgusting.
The rumpus about the Scottish exhibition comes a few days after the release of a report by Durham University which found that knowledge of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian (Jewish and Muslim) Holy Book as old fashioned.