Christian Jankowski - Casting Jesus

Dal Wednesday 07 September 2011
al Saturday 01 October 2011

Lisson Gallery’s exhibition of Christian Jankowski‘s new video installation Casting Jesus opens with the world premiere on 7 September 2011. Casting Jesus revolves around a real casting to select an actor that best interprets the role of Jesus judged by a jury of Vatican members.

Using a game show format 13 professional actors from a casting agency compete for the role of Jesus. A distinguished panel - Monseñor José Manuel del Rio Carrasco, a priest, Sandro Barbagallo art critic at the Vatican’s L'Osservatore Romano newspaper, and Massimo Giraldi from the Vatican’s film department - judges the actors across a variety of tasks including carrying the cross and breaking bread, as well as on their physical appearance and personal interpretations of Jesus. Filmed by Jankowski in the Complesso Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome and watched live via video stream by a separate audience of 300, the actors are gradually narrowed down to one finalist.

Jankowski questions how the Catholic Church perceives the artistic representation of Jesus today and asks how this image translates into modern media. The inspiration for the project came to Jankowski on witnessing by chance the filming of The Passion of Christ in Cine Citta in 2003. During a break in filming Jankowski saw actor James Caviezel dressed as Jesus covered in artificial blood with two priests coaching him to find the right spiritual and artistic expression for the part. Jankowski explains;

‘I was incredibly moved by this image and later when watching The Passion of Christ in the cinema I could see how James Caviezel’s acting had been informed by experts from within the Church.’

In his work, Jankowski often investigates the status of particular formats of film and television production, proposing questions about the levels of reality produced by them. Some of his projects survey the entertainment production companies that pervade our daily lives. Through his often humorous and ironic videos, films and performance he critiques our image based consumer society. In this new installation, art, religion, daily life, reality and fiction are interwoven, blurring the distinction between each.

The works of Jankowski are performances, which engage often unsuspecting collaborators, from televangelists, fortune tellers, border guards and professional magicians, to innocently collude with him, making them 'co-authors' of the final result. The collaborative nature of Jankowski's practice is paramount, as each participant unwittingly contributes his or her own texture. With Jankowski, there is as much emphasis on the journey as the destination, and the risks and chances inherent in his collaborations ultimately give surprising shape to the final works. However, whereas in the past Jankowski has placed himself at the centre of his work in order to show the mechanisms of mass communication, Casting for Jesus sees him revert to the position of the viewer thereby placing more emphasis on the subjects of his work, predominately the jury.

September 7 - October 1, 2011

Lisson Gallery
52-54 Bell Street
London NW1 5DA
Tel +44(0)20 7724 2739
contact@lissongallery.com
www.lissongallery.com