God as burden: A theological reflection on art, death and God in the work of Joost Zwagerman

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title God as burden: A theological reflection on art, death and God in the work of Joost Zwagerman
 
Creator Brouwer, Rein
 
Subject — —
Description In one of his essays on art, Dutch author and essayist Joost Zwagerman (1963–2015) reflects onthe work of (Dutch) South African artist Marlene Dumas (1953). Zwagerman addresses inparticular Dumas’ My Mother Before She Became My Mother (2010), painted 3 years after hermother died. In his reflections, Zwagerman proposes an interpretation of Dumas’ work. Hesuggests that Dumas, in her art, does not accept the omnipotence of death. Maybe againstbetter judgement, but Dumas keeps creating images that not only illustrate the desire formeaning but also embody this desire. The image and the desire for meaning merge in Dumas’paintings. The painting itself becomes an autonomous ‘desire machine’, according toZwagerman. In this article, a (practical) theological reading of Zwagerman’s own posthumouslypublished volume of poetry, ‘Wakend over God’ (2016), is presented, with a specific interest inart, death and God. The sacramental hermeneutics of Richard Kearney and the theopoetics ofJohn Caputo are brought into the conversation to elicit the dimensions of faith and religion inZwagerman’s own ‘desire machine’.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2017-06-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v73i4.4338
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 73, No 4 (2017); 7 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4338/9661 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4338/9660 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4338/9662 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4338/9632
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Rein Brouwer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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