Emily Warner reviews the latest exhibition at York Art Gallery and discusses how art presents 'sin' through history.
Image Credit: Morgan Feely Exhibition Curator, York Art Gallery viewing The Woman Taken in Adultery Rembrandt 1644. Photo by Charlotte Graham
What does sin mean to you? This is the question that the York Art Gallery’s latest exhibition asks of its viewers. Sin is a concept that persists throughout time, extending its serpentine tendrils into every aspect of history, simultaneously poisoning and exciting the minds of creatives. It is something equally important today as it was thousands of years ago and yet just as its relevance persists, so does its elusive and shifting nature. What does sin mean? Are humans able to lead a sinless life? How do secular conceptions of sin differ from religious ones?
York Art Gallery’s exhibition aims to explore these questions through a Western lens. It features a collection of art from the National Gallery in conversation with pieces from its own collection and artwork produced by the Teenage Art School summer course. As a result, locally produced work by a younger generation will be displayed alongside prominent artists such as Rembrandt and Tracey Emin. Far from being discordant, this juxtaposition demonstrates the pervasive influence that sin exerts and carries the debate forward into the 21st century. Morgan Feely, the curator of the exhibition, explained that it was easier than expected to place contemporary art beside older pieces due to the encompassing nature of the theme. I agree that, despite the gap in time between artworks, they collectively possessed a continuity that asked; does art condemn or celebrate sin?
The first piece the viewer encounters is ‘The Penitent Magdalene’ by Georges de La Tour. Although, Morgan Feely admitted, this is not the most technically impressive piece, it encapsulates the binary of sin and repentance beautifully. Mary Magdalene, a biblical figure known for her transgressiveness and sin is depicted in the wilderness, seeking forgiveness from God. The skull, the holy scripture, and her red, upturned eyes, all speak of holiness and divine retribution. However, the tantalising fleshiness of her figure dominates, inviting the viewer to enjoy her sensuousness in a manner bordering on sinful. The mythologies that have accrued around Mary Magdalene culminate in this painting, an enticing combination of virtue and pleasure.
Several pieces from the National Gallery seem to irradiate a similar enjoyment of sin; they relish depicting the unholy. ‘Venus and Cupid’ by Lucas Cranach and ‘Christ Appearing to St. Anthony Abbot’ by Annibale Carracci both contain moral warnings and yet the alluring nude of Venus in the former and the playfulness of the demons in the latter are the more enjoyable aspects of both. I cannot, of course, continue without mentioning Rembrandt’s ‘The Woman Taken in Adultery’ for its exceptional skill and presentation of punishment. However, as Morgan Feely noted, the man involved in the crime is noticeably absent from the painting. This criticism of women for their sexuality seems to permeate much of the collection. Perhaps this is the legacy of Eve’s temptation; perhaps it is a reflection of societies’ insistence on women’s innate sinfulness or a masculine fear of femininity. Regardless of the source, women’s bodies in art have been a continual site of fascination, pleasure, lust, and sin.
Interspersed amongst these older works are more contemporary pieces such as Tracy Emin’s ‘It was just a kiss’. The piece is ambiguous, seeming to gesture towards several interpretations; an excuse for sexual abuse, someone justifiying an affair, or even an oblique reference to Judas’ kiss. Another impactful work is Ron Muek’s ‘Youth’. Saliently positioned in the foreground of Christ’s crucifixion, the resonance of sin can be felt through the ages whilst incorporating modern concerns with knife crime and race.
Image Credit: Ron Muek's 'Youth'. Photo taken by Charlotte Graham
The second room in the gallery contains art from York’s collection and also art created by 13 to 17-year-olds in the Teenage Art School (a five-day course in the summer, centred around the theme of sin). These pieces are a captivating response to those from the National Gallery. They seek to engage with the contemporary, with different generations, with the local community and with various kinds of media. This provides a thought-provoking space where the viewer is invited to bring their own ideas. Certain pieces think about the human body as a sight of sin or about the displacement of ancient conceptions of sin. All these strands of imaginative possibility culminate in Zara Worth’s ‘Think of a Door (temptation/redemption)’, created specifically for the exhibition.
Zara Worth is a Yorkshire based artist, writer and doctoral researcher interested in technology in conjunction with our moral value systems. Her art contains motifs, language and gestures from both social media content and orthodox Christian iconography, drawing unexpected connections between the two. The ‘art’ she has in this exhibition is better described as an immersive experience that invites people to break the conventions of the gallery space and move through and within the piece itself. As I spoke to Zara Worth, neon lights illuminated her face, giving the uncanny sense of assimilation into an ephemeral, digital world. It was impossible to look at the piece but only through it. Zara Worth explained that her work was a ‘“mediation between tangible and intangible space”. She hoped that visitors would photograph it for social media thus demonstrating the ease with which images move from online into reality and then back onto the screen again. It is a similar movement to that of sin itself, which constantly evades us as it mutates, occupying a liminal, porous space comparable to the diaphanous material of Zara’s art.
Image Credit: Yorkshire Artist Zara Worth with art installation Think of a door (temptation/redemption) specially created for the exhibition 2022. Photo by Charlotte Graham
This exhibition (running from 7 October 2022 to 22 January 2023) demonstrates the importance of thinking about sin and illuminates the richness of this conversation in art. The medium of art itself occupies a morally obscure space, both trying to warn the viewer against sin whilst depicting it in a visually pleasing way. Artists throughout history have noticed the contrariness of this aspiration and used art simultaneously to admonish and tempt; teasing the viewer by giving them a moment to indulge in the sin depicted.
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