Christian Jankowski: Casting Jesus

Artistically, portraying God can get tricky. Such depictions ultimately help sculpt how any deity is perceived by the public—be it a happy laughing Buddha or a stoic Greek god sitting loftily atop his mount. And in Western society, how Jesus is portrayed and played is ever the topic of controversy.

As a contemporary multimedia artist who focuses on cultural iconography and rhetoric, Christian Jankowski decided to delve into how people choose to portray the Son of God by taking a look at a select group of Vatican officials aiming to choose the right candidate to play the role of Jesus. In Casting Jesus, he looks at how an oddly modern game-show-like atmosphere is combined with scholarly concerns and traditional precedent to find an appropriate man to fill the sandals.

In conjunction with Jankowski’s work, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art has assembled a panel—including chief curator of the LDS Church History Museum, Rita Wright; artist Ben McPherson; and art-history professor emeritus Sheila Muller, among others—to discuss how issues and concerns can arise within a community when the arts try to cast Jesus.

Thousands of years of art history will be combed through, including such pop-culture occurrences like Jesus Christ Superstar and fine-art depictions such as Michelangelo’s The Pietà, to try to understand dilemmas in portraying Christ—like why most cultures often curate an artistic Jesus created in the image of themselves, as opposed to trying to capture any sort of historical accuracy. (Jacob Stringer)