Postmodern heretics - influence of Catholicism on contemporary artists

Art in America, Feb, 1997 by Eleanor Heartney

[1.] Patrick Buchanan, "Losing the War for America's Culture?" reprinted in Culture Wars, Richard Bolton, ed., New York, New Press, 1992, p. 32.

[2.] For an interesting discussion of some of the theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism see Richard P. McBrien, "Roman Catholicism: E Pluribus Unum," reprinted in Mary Douglas and Steven M. Tipton, eds., Religion and America, Boston, Beacon Press, 1983, pp. 179-89.

[3.] Admittedly, some of these mysteries are shared by Protestants, but they are given a very different spin. For Protestants, for instance, the emphasis of the Resurrection is on the resurrection of the spirit rather than the body, as it is for Catholics, and the Cross is "the emblem of the risen God, not the crucified man" as Harold Bloom notes on page 264 of his study of American Christianity, The American Religion, New York, Touchstone, 1992.

[4.] Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, New York, Pantheon, 1983.

[5.] Robert Mapplethorpe, interviewed by Janet Kardon in Janet Kardon, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Institute of Contemporary Art, 1988, p. 25.

[6.] Kardon, p. 11.

[7.] Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty, Los Angeles, Art Issues Press, 1993, p. 35.

[8.] Arthur C. Danto, Playing with the Edge, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1995.

[9.] Danto, p. 25.

[10.] Interview with the author, January 1996.

[11.] Joel-Peter Witkin, "Revolt Against the Mystical," reprinted in Germano Celant, Joel-Peter Witkin, Zurich, Berlin, New York, Scalo, 1995, p. 52.

[12.] Ibid., p. 50.

[13.] Ibid., pp. 53-54.

[14.] Caroline Walker Bynam, Fragmentation and Redemption, New York, Zone Books, 1992, p. 204.

[15.] Interview with the author, January 1996.