Art historian defends pig's heart Lenten hanging in church
How far can art go?
The high altar of the Innsbruck Spitalskirche is covered by a Lenten cloth, it shows the photo of a pig's heart. Weapons are shown in Innsbruck Cathedral. The excitement is great. How far can art go in the church?
DOMRADIO.DE: The pig's heart caused a lot of excitement on the internet. What stirs the emotions?
Dr Elisabeth Larcher (art historian): The believers are primarily upset that it is the heart of a pig, although that is actually not that important for the message of the picture. It's about depicting the fears of the heart, the hardening of the heart. This is not possible using a human heart with an analogue photograph.
It also offers another aspect: it also addresses the tormented creature, with pigs in particular being tormented. And there is also the positive aspect that pig heart valves save lives. But I have to say that these militant critics don't pay any attention to that.
DOMRADIO.DE: Kalashnikov rifles are also exhibited in Innsbruck Cathedral. What are guns doing in the church? Where's the meaning in that?
Larcher: This project in the Innsbruck Cathedral is an installation by the Viennese artist Christian Altenberger, who explicitly refers to the current situation in the Ukraine. The Kalashnikovs are wooden models, they are dummies. Seven meters high, flamed, if you touch it, you get your hands dirty.
They are put together in the way you often see it, namely as a pyramid. Screens are attached to the individual Kalashnikovs, which create further references to the installation.
DOMRADIO.DE: On a videotape, for example, there is an excerpt from a dance of death, which this artist also designed as a Lenten cloth in another church in Innsbruck. On another one sees grains of wheat scattered in the shape of a gun. And these grains of wheat are picked up by chickens. This again suggests that food is also used as a weapon to starve countries. Ukraine experienced this itself in the Stalinist era, when millions of people starved to death through deprivation of food. The most diverse aspects are addressed in this installation. A hopeful aspect then comes in the third video, in which these guns are burned.
"For me, that's the limit when it comes to blasphemy."
DOMRADIO.DE: How far can art go in the church anyway? Where is the limit then?
Larcher: For me, the limit is reached when it comes to blasphemy, when other people's religious sensibilities are deeply hurt. This is of course a term that stretches, because the expectations and the ability to suffer are different.
In this case I don't see any big problems at all. There have been inquiries as to why guns are on display in the church. Our arguments were: They can be seen everywhere in the church, in the depictions of saints with their instruments of torture.
Right at the beginning there is Saint Sebastian, who is pierced with arrows, then Catherine with the wheel. A terrible instrument of torture. Then there is the tomb of Maximilian III, kneeling before God, stripped of all signs of dignity but not his sword. Next to him stands Saint George with sword and spear. So weapons can be seen everywhere in baroque churches. And finally, the cross is also a horrible instrument of torture.
Cathcon: Modernism has no aesthetic sense.
A Lenten hanging showing the whole history of salvation.
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