"God and Me and Contradiction" All-medium art exhibition. When: The artists' opening is Oct. 10, 2009, 5:00pm. Through Nov. 14th. Where: The address is 1122 N. Stone Ave. Holy Joe Studio (in ART Gallery) is located at the northeast corner of Speedway and Stone across from Pima Community College. Parking is in the back of the building as well as an entranceway. The phone number is (520) 624-7099. The gallery owners are Steve Murray and Maxine. Why: Socio-political art to ruminate on about our common humanity. If God is all things, then God itself is a contradiction, as are we. God gives and takes life. If God is the sum total of everything, then God is both more love that anyone could endure and the most contempt and unfathomable hatred for you at exact the same moment in time. Is this wrong to say? Do we not experience these feelings ourselves? If we are made in a Gods likeness then we must experience things the way God would as well. And "Me", I stand naked and alone. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1934-January 28,1983) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Before there was Eve there was Lilith, the conjoined twin sister of Adam; God's first human children. Born back-to-back and split down the spine so each would be an equal, they were an incestuous first couple conflicted in a power struggle for dominance. Lilith, the stronger of the two, would not submit to lying underneath Adam in submission. Lilith left the garden. God sent his aeons to retrieve her and force her to submit. She had become too powerful for God's strongest archangels. God condemned her and turned her into a demon. God dammed her and her children for eternity. She was the first woman liberated and in so being became the first and the most powerful of all demon goddesses. Such is the love of God for His first daughter. One does not necessarily have to subscribe to an omnipresent god to be subjected to contradiction. It is a working force that is part of the natural order of things such as gravity or magnetism. It functions every second of every moment as though designed with intent or as a natural law. The life every human being lives is one of contradiction. We may dislike someone intensely and yet help him or her when they are at their most desperate hour. How can I exist today, but not tomorrow? In fact many cannot bear the hard realities of life and take their own lives. Is there not a bigger contradiction than to be given life to commit the ultimate violence against one's self? To desire something, but be told one cannot have it only to take it with conflicted emotions; whether it was for good or bad. Humans can live their lives in love/hate relationships, to pray in vain. Politicians promote peace while delivering war. This planet in itself is a contradiction for it is the only place in the universe we know that life exists. Although the creatures on this living globe have life it is not an easy existence. In order to live we must kill. Can there be a bigger contradiction then the mandate to kill to live? Death is the ultimate contradiction of life and perhaps why so many seek everlasting life after death. The contradictions are too great to understand or bear, but fortunately for all of us, contradictions can be embraced positively as part of a greater humanity. Who: 30 artists juried by Marc David Leviton, MFA, Curator Founder and President of Industria Studios, Inc., and Arizona Sculpture Society |
