I got a call from Josh Sunday morning as I was driving to the worship gathering which was so fascinating. He informed me that the new art opening in the coffee house that was opening Sunday had a couple of frontal nude drawings and what do we do?
It was an interesting question.
We recently opened the coffee house, and for Phase 1 we are primarily having it for church usage until we get the things figured out and a business plan where we will open it up to the neighborhood and local college campus every day like a normal coffee shop and also schedule bands etc. But for now, we are having the art theme change around every 6 to 8 weeks. This theme was asking people to submit art that was from their sketchbooks and drawings that they may not normally frame. So people submitted all types of artwork from sketchbooks, a local tattoo artist submitted some really beautiful tattoo sketches, there were nature sketches, all types of things.
We didn't set parameters on what type of art should be submitted apart from sketchbook or art not normally framed. It could be art from those who are part of the church and those who aren't - as the mission of the coffee house is to be is to a place and community where those outside of the church can meet us, become friends hear and experience the gospel of Jesus through us in a variety of ways.
The coffee house art team had strung cords all around the room and created cool 3-D pockets which looked spider-webbish and all the artwork (primarily 8. 5 x 11 sheets) were fastened to the cords.
But there were two artists who submitted nude sketches.
They were very tastefully done, and they looked like sketches that were done in an art class with a model and like you may see in an art gallery or museum. Out of the over 300 or so sketches submitted, three were the "nudes" I am talking about here.
There were two females nudes - and one male nude. The male nude was drawn from the torso downwards, so there was definitely a very bullseye focal point visual target on this one. The females were both half body and full body drawings, pretty realistic looking.
So... we stood there and several of us had quite a fun discussion about all this. It raised some really interesting questions. Some of the questions raised were:
1) What defines what is art?
2) What defines what should be hung up in a coffee house that is part of a church where all kinds of people go into it and children come through it as well?
3) Michaelangelo painted and sculpted nudes. Would we hang a Michaelangelo in the coffee house? Would we put his statue of David in the coffee house that is a nude?
4) What is "holy"? What art is considered "holy" or not?
5) What about violence in art? When I was leading the young adult ministry at Santa Cruz Bible Church and we had a huge art event there. We had a policy that art submitted should not have nudity or violence because of the mixed audience who would see it all (children, youth etc.). But it was raised that if that is the case, then we shouldn't then allow the crucifixion to be in any of the art, since that is such an extreme and bloody violent act. Of course no one would normally object to a crucifixion art piece being hung up, even with youth and children there. So why would we allow a crucifixion scene in art, but not other violent scenes from the Bible? The Bible is full of all type of very descriptive violent scenes, bodies being chopped up, spikes in the head, heads being cut off etc. What if someone was to paint those scenes straight from the Scriptures, would we hang them up? But we hang up the crucifixion with no problem.....
We stood there in front of the nudes on the wall and debated for a while whether or not it is America who sexualizes art and how violence is seen now as entertainment and that is why we shouldn't hang the nudes or violent scenes. We debated how will parents react, since this isn't a museum where you may take your children and expect to see nudity in classical art on the walls. One person was arguing that it should be left up and how the church should be a place and people who redeem the beauty of art and teach that the human body should not always be seen sexually.
After a while of discussion, I made the final decision to take down the nudes. Again, the nudity was very tastefully done, it was not erotica, it was nude sketches of people - but very artistically done and like you would see done in an art class. But we took them down. I felt having them up would cause more questions than it would be worth by leaving them up. Especially because of not wanting parents to be unwarned about some nudes on the walls of the coffeehouse. I am all for questions, but my heart was grappling with where best to have them raised and with whom.
I found the one artist of the nudes and explained why we were taking them down, and she was totally, totally understanding. She also said she submitted the art and the pages actually had two sides of art on them, so we flipped over the pages and used what was on the other side instead.
The art opening went well and the place was packed and we had a live art sketch being created by several people on the stage as part of the opening.
Becky and I had a meal with someone who was there for the first time, and they were coming from what they called a pretty legalistic church - and they found it so refreshing that we were even having the discussion. So that was actually encouraging as I didn't know what they were going to say after hearing the discussion.
Interesting things to think through. You may think I am a legalist or that taking them down was wrong to do and I am too conservative - or you may think we are far too liberal and it was horrible to even debate about it and leave the nudes on the walls for ten minutes. You don't get taught what to do about these types of things in seminary. So we learn as we go......
