A bit disappointed with the Getty exhibit
December 4th, 2006 ~ Travel bloggingWe made it to the Getty exhibit on the Sinai icons, and I’d love to give it two big thumbs up, but I can’t. However, I’m not at all sure that’s not just my problem.
The Getty has done a lovely job presenting both the icons and the sense of reverence that the Orthodox have for them. By presenting them with contextual information about St. Catherine’s Monastery, they have managed to create the right atmosphere. One can almost smell the incense.
But I found that I just wasn’t ready to see icons treated as a very popular museum exhibit. That’s why I say the problem may just be with me. (Well, with me and Greg. He had the same response I did.) I want Orthodoxy to not remain a secret to Americans, and having it appear in some sense that lets the public draw near and examine it is a wonderful thing.
But … I don’t know. It was a weird feeling seeing people milling about, going from this icon to that one — from St. Basil to the Divine Ladder to St. Theodosia — with earphones on, looking, listening, peering around, conversing and pointing. I was aware that I didn’t want to share. I had the feeling that in spite of all my expressions of dismay over Orthodoxy being overlooked, I may be a little bit jealous of the privacy. Orthodox worship is both a public and a very personal thing. I may actually not be ready for it to enter the American mainstream. After all, it’s such a very ugly mainstream right now.
So I’m sheepish in not having higher praise for the exhibit. There’s nothing that the Getty Museum did wrong, and I’d love if people in the area could see these icons and share a more mature appreciation than I can muster. It’s my loss — good thing I’ve got my church icons and home icons to fall back on.
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December 4th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I’m glad you got to go.
December 4th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
I am very glad you got to go… and I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t go, fi I had the chance, because I would feel the same way. I wouldn’t like to see people viewing the icons as “art”, standing in front of them and talking… it would be disappointing to me as well.
December 9th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Good to know I’m not the only one. Maybe the trick is also to be there when it’s not peak hours, but we didn’t have a choice.
December 12th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I got the DVD, and that was lovely. Tell us about the church atmosphere they tried to create? That’s what I gathered from the DVD anyway
December 14th, 2006 at 10:07 am
However, as I have posted other places, this is EXACTLY the sort of environment that occurs at the REAL St. Catherine’s monastery. People come from all over the world to gawk. I’m not even Orthodox, but I was appalled by the behavior of some folks doing photo ops at the Burning Bush. Day after day bus loads of folks tramp up to the place with no thought to head coverings or veneration. For many, it’s just another tourist site along with the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
Reverence and sense of sacred IS ultimately a very personal thing.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Belladonna,
Now that’s something I had really wondered about. I know that it’s not easy to get to St. Catherine’s, and my only anecdotal info about it came from “Walking the Bible” (the book, not the PBS series.) But I had wondered if those people who arrive don’t have the tendency of ALL tourists to treat EVERYTHING as a tourist attraction, rather than just shutting up for one minute and *looking* and *listening*.
Can you point me to your blog entries about this? I did a quick search, but came up empty.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Mimi,
Sorry to delay answering. I wanted to confer with Greg on this to be sure of my answer. But when I asked him about the church atmosphere of the exhibit (which I had read about on their Website as well), he thought a minute and then said, “Well, my opinion is that they really pooched that aspect of it.”
And unfortunately, I agree. From the Webpage, I thought that they would have created the idea of a church to give the icons a context. (In fact, I think I wrote that that was the part I was the most excited about). But the only thing that was remotely reminiscent of church was that the room was slightly darkened. They didn’t have incense, they didn’t pipe in Byzantine chanting, they didn’t give any sense of church architecture or make a kind of iconostasis that would have shown how some icons have priority over others and how they’re approached. They did show the film that you saw on the Website at the exhibit, and the placards next to the icons were respectful of Orthodoxy. But other than that, I can’t see the difference between this and any other icon exhibit.
Hate to keep dissing it. I would still say that those in the area should go see it. The icons and illustrated manuscripts are worth the trip,