Any visit to a major art gallery is an important educational experience: it raises our awareness of artists’ work, and the context in which their ideas were formed.
For big exhibitions at institutions such as Tate Modern or the National Gallery, a well-oiled machine swings into action, with audio guides and introductory leaflets, followed up by an enticingly beautiful illustrated catalogue with scholarly articles. Before the opening, a press viewing will have ensured that the work has been discussed by critics from national newspapers and magazines. But, conversely, those who are not included among art’s chosen elite are also airbrushed out of the discussion and publications.
In the current climate, Christian artists, like others in many walks of life, are often marginalised, but they still have a responsibility to work out their calling and to take their gifting seriously — as in Jesus’s parable, using and extending those talents.
