A Damnatio Memoriae for the Digital Age

In a courtyard of the Capitoline Museum in Rome are remnants of a monumental sculpture of  Emperor Constantine.  Clumped together in no particular order are bits of a colossal marble arm, a leg, a knee, feet that dwarf us mere mortals, a hand pointing heavenward and a head with its massive eyeballs focused far above and beyond you.  The fragments, disconcerting as they are, start to reveal a deeper secret as you wander around them.  The extremities are very naturalistic - the feeling of veins muscle and tissue are coaxed from the marble.  But that iconic head is, well, iconic.  It is stiff and stylised.  The hair is suggested with the most rudimentary carving.  And the proportions seem a little out of whack. It doesn't look like it belongs with the other body parts.  Something happened way back when.   

Back when in the 3rd century AD, the unending political chaos of the Roman Empire ultimately lead to the formation of a new power sharing structure between Diocletian (ruled 284-305) and Maximian (ruled 286-305) called the Tetrarchy which for awhile brought stability.  But the planned orderly succession of power upon their joint abdication did not go so orderly and rapidly devolved back into chaos and ultimately a civil war between Maxentius, who controlled Italy and the African provinces and Constantine who controlled Britain, Gaul, Spain and the Rhineland.  While Constantine was busy trying to consolidate support up north, Maxentius began and extensive building program in Rome to win the "hearts and minds" of the population and restore the status of the ancient capitol.  He built large and luxuriously.  He restored the Hadrianic era Temple of Venus and Roma which had been destroyed by fire, built an enormous new basilica in the Roman Forum and began a new bath complex on the Quirinal hill.  On October 28 in the year 312, Maxentius exited his newly fortified walls of Rome to confront Constantine in the final battle for power at Milvian Bridge, just north of the city.  The outcome irrevocably changed history.  (Maxentius lost).  Following his victory, Constantine did all he could to wipe the defeated adversary's name from the memory of the city's inhabitants.  A Damnatio Memoriae was enacted.

Damnatio Memoriae is the dishonor of memory where traces of the offending individual were rubbed out - literally and figuratively.  It was the cancel culture of the ancient world.  Maxentius was not the first to be hit with this decree, nor was he the last; just another in a long line.  Septimius Severus was to co-rule with his brother, Geta, but that didn't work out.  Septimius had Geta murdered within a year of acquiring power and all images of his sibling were chiseled out of existence, leaving some unusual "gaps" in the physical record.  Marcus Aurelius did the same to his adoptive brother and co-emperor, Lucius Verus. The bronze colossus that once stood next to the Flavian Amphitheater (now known by the generic name of colosseum) was originally a statue of Nero residing within the confines of his Domus Aurea.  After the "unexpected" death of that emperor, and the subsequent official decree of damnatio memoriae, the bronze colossus was moved a few hundred yards, underwent some changes to the head, and was thus transformed into a statue of Apollo that served as an ornament to the newly built arena.  

Severan family portrait (with face of Geta removed)

The discordant head of Constantine at the Capitoline Museum has a similar story.  The enormous statue was actually of Maxentius housed in the enormous basilica he built.  A quick recarving of the head after Maxentius' defeat and it was now Constantine who presided over the basilica.

The events of the last months of the Trump administration made me think of the machinations and jockeying for power of imperial wannabes in late antiquity.  I began to wonder if the decree of Damnatio Memoriae had any resonance today.  Then Corporate America stepped in:

As a post script, Representative Joaquin Castro has introduced legislation to ban Trump's name from being used on federal property.

Sancta Prepuce

Two words:  Conspiracy Theories.  No matter how outrageous, how convoluted or how devoid of analytical thought, our country is gripped by them them.  They are the currency of today.  Internet fame is conferred upon those that peddle them.  Media empires are built upon amplifying them, and then they re-enforce them through endless repetition for fear of loosing market share.  Well, I have my own conspiracy theory and it centers around today's Feast of the Holy Circumcision (January 1st) and one questionable relic.  

Relics were the conspiracy theories of the middle ages.  They were actively traded and monetised; they brought wealth and prestige to the churches and abbeys that housed them. They were engines of economic growth.  Beyond the mundane bits of bone and fragments of the true cross, there were many more outlandish ones including milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary, along with her belt that she inadvertently left behind when she ascended into heaven.  There was also the manger that the baby Jesus was placed in and the lance that pierced his side.  Possibly the most peculiar relic, and the one that my conspiracy theory revolves around, is the Sancta Prepuce, or the foreskin of Jesus.  Jesus, born a Jew, would have been circumcised 8 days after birth.

December 25, in the year 800, Charlemagne, King of the Frankish kingdoms, was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in St Peter's in Rome.  Among the gifts Charlemagne gave to Pope Leo was a small alabaster box that contained, preserved in oil, the foreskin of Jesus.  Where Charlemagne acquired this peculiar item is not known, but once in his possession, Leo III placed it in his private chapel in the medieval Lateran Palace, the Sancta Sanctorum, with other priceless relics and there it stayed for the following 700 years.  During the Sack of Rome in 1527 it was looted.  Later that year, a German mercenary was captured in Calcata with the precious relic which was then transferred to the village church.

Calcata is an ancient medieval town perched precariously atop volcanic cliffs 47 km north of Rome.  With the foreskin now housed in its church, it became a popular pilgrimage destination complete with a 10 year indulgence offered to pilgrims who made the trek there.  Each year on January 1st, the Feast of the Holy Circumcision, the relic was paraded around town.  Until 1983.  That is when he parish priest Dario Magnoni announced to the village that the Sancta Prepuce had vanished. Stolen. Gone.  But no police report was ever filed.

For most of the preceding century, the Papal authority had questioned and sought to suppress the veracity of the Holy Foreskin.  By 1900 citing "irreverent curiosity", the importance of the relic was downplayed,.  Soon after, even mentioning the Sancta Prepuce could lead to excommunication.  In 1960 as part of Pope John XXIII's liturgical calendar revisions, January 1st was renamed the Octave of the Nativity, no longer explicitly mentioning the circumcision.  In 1969 the name was changed  again to the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, effectively erasing the connection to the foreskin.  But still, Calcata persisted.

So why did this tradition which spanned hundreds of years come to an abrupt end in 1983?  

Here is my Q-anon worthy theory.  In the 1970's a rapid sequencing technique for DNA was developed.  By the early 1980's this technology was established and reputable enough to be used in court cases to secure a conviction.  In 1982 Delacorte Press published a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, which became a New York Times best seller.  The book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, put forth the idea of a bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  It is an idea that Dan Brown would later employ as the storyline for his explosive and phenomenally popular book, The DaVinci Code. 

Now there was the real possibility that Christianity could be brought to its knees - if the DNA of the Sancta Prepuce could be sequenced and a bloodline of Jesus could be identified, that would throw into doubt the divinity and divine origins of Christ.  All would collapse like a house of cards.  The Vatican had to act, and act fast.  The wealth, power and prestige of the Church was threatened.  The ancient relic was made to disappear.

Today Calcata is a quirky quiet little village, still clinging to the rocky outcropping.  In 2015, I decided to post drawings of prepuce around the town in homage to its past.

Me Too

The presidency of Donald Trump has polarised our nation.  But his toxic brand has served to clarify and amplify the distinction between an entrenched misogynistic and racist culture and those of us that believe in a broader sense of equality and justice for all.  He has made (many) of us look a little closer at our thoughts, actions and even our collective histories.  This process has spun way beyond the first pussy hat marches in the opening days of this administration and the sustained Black Lives Matter protests going on now.  It has spread to cultural institutions, thanks to the DeColonise This Place protests and even into academia.  Corporate America, whose only interest has always been the financial bottom line, is being forced to join this conversation.

In Rome I have a continuing guerrilla billboard campaign in support of the Me Too movement.  It was not difficult to find images to serve as the literal poster child for #Me Too.  Doing this project has changed me.  There is a new awareness of how deep, profound and across the board abuse and victimisation of women is in the canon of western art.  I now look at the artworks differently than I did as an undergraduate sitting in a darkened lecture hall watching slides projected on a screen. 

There are ramifications to art history.  As I was writing this post, Congressman Ted Yoho called Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a, and I refuse to repeat the vulgarity, literally behind her back on the steps of the US Capitol.  In his forced faux apology in the House, Yoho said, and I quote, "no one was accosted, bullied or attacked".

 

Christopher Pelley  #Me Too  Rome

Christopher Pelley  #Me Too   Rome

Christopher Pelley  #Me Too   Rome

Christopher Pelley   #Me Too   Rome

The good news: change happens.  Congressman Yoho will not be seeking re-election in the fall.

Chinese Characteristics

In the northern hemisphere water circles clockwise before continuing its journey down the drain.  In the southern hemisphere I am told it circles counterclockwise before descending.

Culturally the East and the West reflect a similar polarity.  Structures of everyday life are conceptually organised in opposite ways.

In the West, writing is organised in lines from the top of the page to the bottom going from left to right. Traditionally in the East writing was composed in columns descending from the top to the bottom of the page and organised right to left across the page. Clay roof tiles in the West are laid in convex courses and in the East the courses are laid in a concave fashion. Even royal colors are opposites – western royalty wore purple and imperial chinese wore yellow.  The West prefers organising geographies from smaller to larger: street, city, province, and China prefers larger to smaller organisation: province, city, street.  The polarity continues to even the way time is conceptually ordered, which seems to present endless confusion with translation software. The West considers the past to be below (ie we build upon the past) and the future is above. Chinese express the past as SHANG 上  (above or on top of) and the future is XIA 下 (under or below). 

Sometimes I wonder if somewhere in the world there is a place that water does not circle to the left or to the right, but effortlessly and without hesitation continues a leisurely journey to its destination.

My work in China references this distinct cultural narrative.  Here are a few paintings that I did last year in my studio outside of Beijing.

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #1

mixed  media / canvas  135cm x 120cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #2

mixed media / canvas   135cm x 175cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #3

mixed  media / canvas   170cm x 130cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #5

mixed  media / canvas  150cm x 130cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #6

mixed  media / canvas   115cm x 80cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #7

mixed  media / canvas   105cm x 95cm

Christopher Pelley   Chinese Characteristics #8

mixed  media / canvas   100cm x 90cm

Fear of the Fragment

Recently the Metropolitan Museum unveiled the newly restored 15th century sculpture of  Adam by Tullio Lombardo.  It has taken 12 years of research and conservation since that afternoon in 2002 when the plywood base beneath the marble sculpture buckled and Adam toppled onto the floor sending hundreds of pieces careening in all directions.  Almost immediately the decision was made to restore the sculpture as closely as possible to its pre-impact appearance.  After the major and innumerable minor fragments were re-assembled, pinned and glued, there were still areas where the marble had been pulverized upon impact.  These gaps were filled with an acrylic based bulking materials.  The sculpture was then cleaned of excess acrylic and centuries of grime. He was a wonder to behold, but also left me wondering.  Are we seeing a major shift in he goals of restoration?

Up until the renaissance people didnt seem concerned about the past except in passing.  With the humanist shift to the here and now from the previous focus on the after-life, the past became an object of inquiry.  Trade in antiquities boomed as collectors competed for new finds gouged from the earth. Disappointment with fragments was remedied through artful "restoration".  These often fanciful reconstructions would frequently knit together disparate pieces to form a new, more pleasing completed piece.  Many noted sculptors, including Bernini, would be enlisted to carve the missing pieces.  Forward a few centuries later and the architect and engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778) developed a different view.  He celebrated  the fragment as an embodiment of the past, whose reconstruction will always only be conjecture.  This notion was rapidly adopted by the Romantics a generation later with Friedrich Schlegel who postulated that the fragment was a gateway to the sublime.  We in the west have maintained that position...until now.  When the temple of Abu Simbel was rescued from the rising waters behind the Aswan Dam in 1968 and moved to higher ground, the seams from where the massive stone monument was cut could have been concealed when it was reassembled.  But they were not.  When Da Vinci's Last Supper was restored from 1978-1999 everything was removed that was not considered to be by the hand of Da Vinci, leaving only ghostly traces for contemporary viewers.

But has digital reconstruction imagery popularized by the History Channel shifted the way we want to see the past?  Has enhanced reality become more potent than the real?  Does the restoration of Tullio Lombardo's Adam and the ongoing reconstruction of the Parthenon, complete with filling of chipped sections of the column drums and lintels, re-carved missing sections all supported by modern materials signal the death of the Sublime?

Me?  I believe in the power of the fragment as interpretive memory.  I guess Im just Old Skool that way.

Christopher Pelley,  Piranesi  oil/canvas   75cm x 90cm

Christopher Pelley,  Antinoo (beloved)  oil/canvas  75cm x 90cm

Christopher Pelley,  Toga  oil/canvas  55cm x 50cm

Learning from Lei Feng

Lei Feng (1940-1962) was a soldier in the Peoples Liberation Army, who, post-mortem, was singled out and promoted as a role model by no less than Mao Zedong himself.  His near mythic acts of selflessness (he darned his comrades' socks!  he sewed quilts for others!  he hauled heavy loads of manure!) earned him a feast day on the Chinese calendar.   March 5 is now known as Learn From Lei Feng Day.  The 5 months I was in Beijing, I learned that just about every one has a strong feeling about Lei Feng.  He is seen as either the uncomplaining young man who helped old ladies cross the street, or as a propaganda tool minted for the darkest times of recent Chinese history - the Cultural Revolution.  His cult has been revived in part to combat the excessive selfishness that has emerged with the get rich at any cost mentality.  Like any myth or legend, I believe he falls somewhere in between.

And like any myth or legend, there is an accumulation of imagery that is available to explore.  Inexplicably there are photos of Lei Feng worthy of a Hollywood studio.  High wattage light drenching the scene with hard cast shadows replaced earlier, humbler depictions of his actions.  But it is his cherubic face with his eyes gazing straight out that I zeroed in on.

The China of Lei Feng has changed beyond recognition; the analog has been superseded by the digital.  Thrift is ignored as consumerism is encouraged.  In the village of Shangyuan, about 30km  north of Beijing, I installed a hand painted lo-rez image of Lei Feng.  Each 'pixel' is a 4cm x 4cm square of painted paper. Confusing up close, Lei Feng is only seen from a distance.

Christopher Pelley,  Lei Feng From a Distance   2014

Everything is made in China and in quantities beyond comprehension, feeding the world's appetite for cheap goods and the domestic consumption of 1.4 billion people.  Who mends  a pair of socks today? This lo-rez image of Lei Feng was made from over 600 pairs.

Christopher Pelley,  He Darned His Comrades' Socks   2014

The propaganda department during the years of the Cultural Revolution wove the narrative of this fine young soldier's devotion to the welfare of others with his devotion to the words of Mao.  It was these years that saw the Great Leap Forward result in the deaths of millions of peasants as their farm implements were melted to satisfy iron production quotas set by the central government.  I began painting the image of Lei Feng on shovels.  When asked by a visiting guest if these works were political, I could only reply that all works and all decisions are in some way political.....

Christopher Pelley,  Shoveling Dung  2014

Every good hero dies at the end of the story.  Lei Feng was killed at age 22 when, while directing a fellow soldier backing up a truck, a telephone pole was struck and fell on our comrade. 

surveillance

There appears to be one growth industry in these post-economic downturn times.  Surveillance cameras.  They are everywhere - proliferating like cheap tourist souvenirs.  It seems that one cannot saunter down any strada without being watched.  But this is Roma, and have you ever really been able to move about unnoticed?  Whether it be gods or emperors, eyes have always been upon you, sometimes staring defiantly at you, sometimes just threatening to look your way.  The mute stones that populate this city have always watched.  

I have started my own street watch campaign, referencing this roman proclivity. 

  

Next time you take a stroll, try and count how many cameras, private and civil, are tracking you.