Heavenly Bodies! Part II

Heavenly Bodies! Part II

(We conclude our coverage of the new Met exhibition. Part I can be found HERE. No photography was permitted in the Vatican exhibition space – your reporter was one of the minority adhering to the rules.)

Now what of the “Vatican” part of the exhibition?

Actually, it’s “much ado about nothing.” In two smallish rooms apart and downstairs from the rest of the show are displayed items connected to the papacy mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries. In one room are precious tiaras, clasps, a monstrance and other metalwork. In the other room is a variety of chasubles, dalmatics, copes and other liturgical vestments. Most of the exhibits are gifts from religious orders, nobles and rulers, both Catholic and non-Catholic. May we surmise that, in contrast to the Renaissance papacy, more recent supreme pontiffs lacked the financial resources to commission such things themselves? It’s not an exhibition of great art but more like a collection of papal knick-knacks.

Except for certain items from the 18th and early 19th centuries, most of the works shown here were executed in historical revival styles, particularly a kind of neo-baroque. We have to admit that, even if originality is lacking, a distinct continuity of splendor and dignity is maintained. Especially three beautiful white copes from different eras testify to a persisting sense of beauty, balance and yes, of style utterly absent among the creations of the champions of the “Catholic Imagination” upstairs. Only as the 20th century progressed do we note here and there lapses in judgement: a lavish chasuble given to Pius XI is marred by a small panel copying what is obviously a photograph of the Pope. At the entrance to the exhibit is displayed about the only representative of a modern style that can be found: an original vestment by Matisse from around 1950. I believe it actually belongs to the Modern Art museum here, for this much-ballyhooed creation was almost immediately traded away by the chapel for which it had been created- allegedly because it was too heavy.

But undoubtedly not the art critic but the historian will be most interested in these Vatican rooms. For so many of the items were specifically commissioned for a pope on an important occasion: a significant anniversary or a major event of state(like the signing of the Lateran treaty). There’s a real fascination in viewing items closely associated with each individual pope from 1800 to the present.

As in the rest of Heavenly Bodies, howlers are to be found among the descriptions of the items displayed. I learn that the city of Regensburg is in Switzerland. Saint Pius XII is mentioned; John Paul II is not so styled (Is there a Traditionalist mole at work?) But I think the issues with the Vatican rooms are more fundamental that this.

First, the Vatican exhibit establishes no direct link to the fashions that are the main subject of the overall exhibition. For their inane parodies and travesties the show’s featured designers looked not in the first instance to Papal regalia, but to the images and signs of popular Catholic devotion (or least those which existed in the now dimly remembered pre-conciliar past): rosaries, nuns’ habits, soutanes, images of pilgrim statues, of the Mater Dolorosa, of the Sacred Heart , etc.

Second, there is no attempt to explain the contrasts between the exhibits and the practices in the Church today. Vestments of the baroque style have been mostly retired or even destroyed. We see a series of splendid tiaras and are then told Pope Paul VI abolished their use – why? John Paul II’s red shoes are on display. But wasn’t Pope Benedict XVI vilified for wearing such shoes – falsely described as Pradas? And in one of his first ostentatious media events the current Pope ditched them for black shoes. If this show is about the “”Catholic imagination,” isn’t the viewer entitled to an explanation why the current Catholic imagination has departed so radically from what is on display here?

A word should be said about the merchandizing connected with the exhibition. Now a primary goal of Heavenly Bodies is to motivate the eagerly anticipated hordes of female tourists to buy products of the industry. The sponsors obviously hope these visitors will head further south on Fifth Avenue to shop in Saks and Versace (in the display windows there: black leather, sequined crosses and Byzantine icons). But for the more impecunious, the Met offers on its own premises a dedicated Heavenly Bodies store. In addition to the usual scarves and jewelry, it features racks of clothing (like denim jackets with images of St Michael). And in a new first (and a new low) for both the Met and the Catholic Church, a line of cosmetics is available for purchase as well:

The makeup offerings will comprise of her latest launch, Lust: Gloss, in a hue she’s named “Aliengelic.” The gloss, which retails for $28, will be making its exclusive debut at the Met, and is described by Pat as “an extravagantly ethereal gloss inspired by celestial beings and opulent textures I saw woven throughout ‘Heavenly Bodies.'” Additionally, a special edition version of her Mothership IV: Decadence Eyeshadow Palette, which retails for $125, will feature unique packaging, inspired by paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods that figure heavily in the exhibit. All products will be launching tomorrow, May 8, at the exhibition store at The Met Fifth Avenue, with select items stocked at The Met Cloisters as well as online. (SOURCE)

The “Catholic Imagination” unleashed – especially where big bucks are to be made. (Above)Versace on Fifth Avenue – with your photographer. (Below) At Saks, a vestment-based creation by Dior – with images from Tarot cards?

(Below) Also at Saks, from Dolce & Gabbana. By the way, I read that these Saks windows will only be on display until May 14.

Certain commentators (like Ross Douthat) claim to dislike Heavenly Bodies but nevertheless enter into dialectical gymnastics as to how it could conceivably benefit the Catholic faith. The reader of our review should be able to form his own judgment of the feasibility of that. But to make a long story short, I’d just add that given this show’s sponsors, it never would have seen the light of day if there had been even the remotest chance of advancing Christianity. The Met does not make all its medieval galleries (and the Cloisters too!) available to stir up Catholic religious belief!

Indeed there is a long history of similar events in Europe, where the hierarchy ( as exemplified by Cardinal Ravasi) collaborates with the moneyed (and often state-supported)art establishment in exhibitions – often with churches and cathedrals as venues. Of course, the cooperation is entirely one-sided in favor of an art scene striving for the blasphemous, the disorienting and the shocking. A succession of well-informed (secular)French authors have written extensively on this subject. In a sense, Heavenly Bodies is just a bigger, bolder, cruder version of the same. What is implicit in the European precedents is in the USA explicit: the direct integration of the Church establishment into the world of money, media and entertainment on that world’s terms, with Catholic doctrine and morality jettisoned. With the point hammered home by a thousand images transmitted all over the world.

Yes, it is a great show for the hierarchy, in the tradition of analogous spectacles like the Assisi meetings or the Papal tours. Heavenly Bodies, as a show, is intended to convey an image of harmony between the hierarchy and the powers of the secular world – a harmony that does not in fact exist. But by agreeing to participate in a show – an inherently mendacious, areligious form of entertainment – the Vatican also puts on display to anyone who can see the collapse of its own moral authority.