Triptych for Vatican Museums
ABOUT
Applying the rhetoric of Catholicism and Christian-inspired activism, Triptych for Vatican Museums manipulates the consent of its recipient to claim ownership of the Museum space. To this end, three dogmas of Christianity are centrally addressed:
“Pro-life” arguments against reproductive choice
The Ontological Argument which seeks to prove the existence of God
The supremacy of the New Covenant of the New Testament over the Old Covenant of the Old Testament
Triptych for Vatican Museums repurposes these arguments to extend their implications to an unnamed work of art conceived of by the artist. The three panels of the Triptych argue, respectively, that:
My conception of a work of art is sufficient for its total being
My conception of a work of art than which greater cannot be conceived is sufficient for its perfection
That art which does not exist materially is greater than that which does
Triptych for Vatican Museums, by its evangelism for a supreme work of art, and by its own dogmatic insistence, recalls Christianity’s history of forced conversion, colonial theft, and genocide.
Moreover, Triptych for Vatican Museums connects the violence of this history to ongoing anti-choice efforts of the Church and its adherents, whereby institutional, rhetorical, and cultural power is employed to attack bodily autonomy and obstruct the mechanisms of self-determination.
The dogmas to which the Triptych responds share in their sanctification of what is not manifestly real. Parallel with those purposes described above, Triptych for Vatican Museums functions to justify and elevate the artist’s extended period of inactivity. By appealing to the authority of God and the Church, and by comparison with the divine, the artist seeks to absolve themself of the crime of low, or dubious, productivity.
In publication, Triptych for Vatican Museums appears to contradict itself: the illimitability of the idea is abruptly delimited, and absolution is established by definite form and action. But artists are not unbound from their material conditions: therefore, god becomes a man, and vision becomes a commodity.
Addressed in a journal entry during the composition of Triptych for Vatican Museums:
“It is my task to answer for a deep and terrible silence, for the absent God is my God. And I myself am implicated, as one for whom the unbirthed possibility is the nearest distinction. My program, therefore, is two-fold and mirrored: two-fold, to justify the nothing I generate, and to tribute the various nothings to which humanity is in worship; and mirrored, to be ridiculous, and to expose the trick one hides behind.”
A precursor to Triptych for Vatican Museums is a letter to the Patron’s Office of the Vatican Museums, dated June 28, 2016, that urges petition for the inclusion of an idea for an indistinct work of art in the Vatican collection.
Triptych for Vatican Museums was conceived and composed between the summers of 2017 and 2018. Though the dates of each panel of the Triptych do not correlate to actual dates of completion, the order of composition is accurately reflected.
On January 28, 2020, the artist sent a letter each to the Director of the Vatican Museums, the Managing Director of the Vatican Museums, and to the spiritual advisor to the Vatican Museums. On Easter Monday, April 13, 2020, a parcel was sent to His Holiness Pope Francis, containing Triptych for Vatican Museums.