At the beginning of the week it was there again, this all-other-suffocating topic when it comes to the Catholic Church: “Searches in the abuse scandal also in Cardinal Marx’s official residence. There is no suspicion against Marx.” The newspapers wrote something like this. Now the week is coming to an end, and on the Domberg, in the brilliantly newly renovated Museum of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, an exhibition opens its doors entitled “Damned Lust – Church. Body. Art.”
It was initiated by Reinhard Marx himself. Back in 2018, in cooperation with Peter Beer, then vicar general of the archdiocese and commissioner of a first abuse report, which was followed by a second one last year. It blamed Beer for omissions, which he admitted, but the experts attested to him at the same time that he “as one of the few and against partly bitter resistance within the archdiocese” to have used for clarification and processing of cases of abuse.
The male gaze dominates the art of the church almost entirely, were it not for Artemisia
The director of the Diocesan Museum, Christoph Kurzeder, and his team had almost finished the show when the pandemic paralyzed cultural life, as well as some social processes that were actually so important. Because the Catholic Church’s own museum had long been closed for renovations, the exhibition was to take place in the heart of Munich, in the congress hall of the Alte Messe, flanked by a large supporting program peppered with discussions, celebrations and provocations.
Five years later, the show looks a little different in detail, but its basic intention has remained the same: “The exhibition is entirely in the context of the current discussion, but it deliberately does not want to and cannot be an exclusive show on sexual abuse,” says Kurzeder.
The Immaculate Conception by Benventuto Tisi, known as Il Garofalo (1481 – 1559), shows how the princes of the church persuade themselves to have their chaste Mary.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
In the foreword to the catalogue, which explains the paintings, sculptures and documents shown – from evidence of popular piety to masterpieces by Artemisia Gentileschi and Leonardo da Vinci – in an entertaining and opulent manner, Cardinal Marx also explains his perspective. The exhibition “Damned Lust” is so “explosive because the current discussion about how to deal with cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church not only reveals problems inherent in the system, such as clericalism and abuse of power,” writes Marx, “but above all a crucial basic problem , namely the often very strained relationship of many people in our church to physicality and sexuality”.
Furthermore, Marx writes of “double standards” and “repression”, of forgetting, “that Christian anthropology actually wants to and can open up positive and liberating perspectives even in the most personal and intimate area of human life”.
Rarely clear: St. Cajetan von Thiene in full priestly robes gazes spellbound at the sensuous Maria Magdalena in Andrea Vaccaro’s painting.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
So what exactly can be seen in this show on Domberg, where works by artists such as James Turrell, Anselm Kiefer and Kiki Smith have now also found their way into the permanent collection? It is not contemporary art, which in this case would have enabled a comfortable escape into the abstract. It is a festival of the body, of the tangible, of the sensual, celebrated in 150 artefacts from pre-Roman antiquity to contemporary art, with a focus on the Middle Ages to around 1800, the time when almost all European art production was created in a church context .
Significantly, there is only one work that can be proven to have been done by a woman: Artemisia Gentileschi, “who herself was a victim of sexual violence,” says Christoph Kurzer.
Even if there are works of much higher artistic quality and more prominent in this exhibition, one is almost exemplary for the most obvious basic conflict of the church in dealing with the sexuality of its dignitaries. It shows St. Cajetan of Thiene, in full priestly robes, staring spellbound at Mary Magdalene, who is only covered by her hair. Kajetan holds his left hand tightly clenched, struggling for self-control, his right hand ready in a tender gesture to reach for her. The scene sparkles with the irony of the painter Andrea Vaccaro (1604 – 1670).
Director Christoph Kurzder in the hall with depictions of Saint Sebastian, whose body pierced with arrows stimulated many a sexualized artist’s imagination.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
The exhibition shows how artists used their work for the church to covertly or openly criticize existing taboos and conventions, do’s and don’ts. It is far from the artists and the exhibition organizers to blame the grievances solely on the consequences of celibacy.
In eight chapters, the curators tell of the “shameless body”, the sinful, sensual, pure, forbidden, permitted and the injured body. Homoerotic desire, as in the room dedicated to the gay saint Sebastian, is also a theme, as is sexual violence.
The Penitent Mary Magdalene by Guido Cagnacci (1601 – 1663) holds a skull in her lap. Anyone standing in front of the original can clearly see the zeal the painter put into the luster of her youthful breasts.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
The clearest exhibit on the subject of abuse between an elderly man and a boy is provided by the sculpture “Pan teaches the shepherd boy Daphnis to play the flute”. The faun (as a cast of an original from the 1st century AD, religiously located differently) harasses a delicate youth with a buckhorn and erect genitalia.
The revolving around guilt and punishment, and the lust in this context, shows itself in almost endless variations. The last chapter is also truthfully titled: “It remains difficult!” What the visitors recognize in the exhibits, what they personally take away from this exhibition, depends entirely on themselves. “Because everyone brings their biography with them,” says Kurzeder. The first reactions to the exhibits, ranging from shock to enthusiasm, would have made that abundantly clear to him.
Assault carved in stone: “Pan teaches the shepherd boy Daphnis to play the flute”, in the original from the 1st century AD. The sculpture is on loan from the Abgussmuseum in Munich.
(Photo: Marco Einfeldt)
In addition to the aforementioned catalogue, a volume with 20 essays will also be published, and a source volume is in preparation. The show is framed by special tours, concerts, readings and panel discussions on topics such as “Miraculous Transition – Gender Change in Christian Art” and “Priestly Marriage, Concubinage and Fornication – Spiritual Sexuality in Early Bavaria”.
All of this reads like an approach to the possible self-healing powers of the church that are believed to lie beneath a solidified crust. If they are not completely suffocated under the weight of the systemic (and not just painted) guilt that the institution has shouldered, “Damned Lust” could be the prelude to a turning point in the Catholic Church in this country. If the path to this leads through art, the means are always sacred.
Damn lust! Church. Body. Art, Freising Diocesan Museum, Domberg, Sunday, March 5 to Monday, May 29, daily except Mondays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Recommended for ages 14+. Catalog and volume of essays (both Hirmer Verlag). Extensive accompanying program at www.dimu-freising.de