Review

Belief

Creed

Music

Wildness

18 November 2024

5 min read

Did Nick Cave’s tour just take thousands to church?

He’s picking holes in the idea that religion is where freedom goes to die.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A rock star prowls the stage while behind hundred of faces tined red star.

Cave and the congregation.

Instagram/nickcaveofficial.

went to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Wild God Tour.

I was told that it would be a terrific show, and it was. I was told that Cave would be more charismatic and commanding than he’s been in decades, and he was. I was told that it would be some kind of spiritual experience, and it was…

Kind of.

Those who are likening it to a ‘spiritual’ (including ‘This Country’ actor, Charlie Cooper) experience are certainly onto something, the whole production is designed to be transcendent, it’s just that the adjective they’re opting for is a little too vague. Instead, I would suggest that the show is a religious experience.

Now, hear me out - I know that we tend to feel nice and comfortable with the ambiguity of the former adjective, and much more cautious when it comes to rigidity of the word I’ve subbed it out for. If you just winced at the sight of the big, bad, R-Word, I get it. It comes with all kinds of wince-worthy connotations. A lot of it, deserved. Some of it, not.

But, like it or not, I truly don’t think that Nick Cave is giving us the comfortable luxury of vague-ness.

When I wrote about the Wild God album upon its release, I mentioned that the ‘Wild God’ to whom the record is an obvious ode is not abstract. Rather, the ‘wild god’ is the Christian god. The album attaches itself to a specific story, it finds its home within a specific paradigm. And the same is true of the tour. I would propose, if I may be so bold, that Cave and his Bad Seeds have spent the past few months telling the Jesus-story in every city they’ve found themselves, and subsequently, taking tens of thousands of people to church.

I would hate for you to think that my objective here is to stick a flag on the hill of this album/tour/artist. It’s not my intention to claim Nick Cave for ‘team Christianity’; it’s not necessary, he speaks continuously and profoundly about his own faith. Rather, as someone who has lived her life according to the very same Jesus-story, I’m simply offering you a lens through which you can gaze upon this touring work of art.

So, I’ll suggest it again – the Wild God tour is a religious experience.

And I know that sounds too constrictive of an analysis, but I think that’s on us for ever kidding ourselves into thinking that ‘religious’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘church’ were small words.

That’s certainly not the way Nick views them. In a recent issue of his Red Hand Files, he writes,

‘ I experience a certain vague ‘spiritualness’ within the world’s chaos, an approximate understanding that God is implicit in some latent, metaphysical way, yet it is only really in church – that profoundly fallible human institution – that I become truly spiritually liberated. I am swept up in a poetic story that is both true and imaginative and fully participatory, where my spiritual imagination can be both contained and free. The church may appear to some as small, even stifling, its congregation herdlike, yet within its architecture, music, litanies, and stories, I find a place of immense spiritual recognition and liberation.’

Fascinating, isn’t it? The concept feels kind of upside down. How could confinement cultivate liberation? How could boundaries ever encourage freedom, or particularity somehow hold entirety?

Can the ‘spiritual imagination’ truly be ‘both contained and free’? I think it can. In fact, I think that would be my own story, too. And, what’s more, I think the Wild God tour is some kind of proof of concept.

Can art be bursting with rage and religion? I think Nick has just proved that it can. I think he is probing, once again, at the myth that faith and hope can’t sit alongside carnage.

The whole show is framed by Cave’s joyous bewilderment at his own conversion – song by song, it tells the story of how he has been wading through the thickets of grief, his eyes steadily fixed on the God who rescued him ‘just in time’.

It’s specific. It’s religious.

And here’s the funny thing: the show having such a specific story to tell doesn’t seem to have a narrowing effect. Instead, songs about storms in the tiny town of Tupelo and girls who live on Jubilee Street seem to be swept up into a story that’s big enough to hold them, big enough even, to imbue them with yet more meaning. Doubt also sits comfortably here. As does anger and profanity.

Can something be sweary and sacred? Can art be bursting with rage and religion?

I think Nick has just proved that it can. I think he is probing, once again, at the myth that faith and hope can’t sit alongside carnage. He’s finding holes in the idea that religion is a place where freedom goes to die, picking a fight with the claim that ambiguous spirituality, or even outright irreligion, is more freeing.

It’s a big old fight he’s picked, one that’s been fought – in one way or another – since the beginning of time. I guess, as a Christian, it’s a fight that I have picked, too. I have placed my life (and, if we’re going to get weird with it, my afterlife) within the confines of a particular story. Am I certain that I’m right? Of course not – otherwise my faith would be faith-less, no? Nevertheless, I too have chosen to place my understanding of the eternal in the confines of the particular. I, too, am trusting that within the boundaries of the Christian story, there’s space for me to run free.

The word ‘religion’ is roomier than we are often urged to believe. Need convincing? Nick Cave is your man.

Article

Art

Belief

Culture

1 October 2024

4 min read

How the curious react to creativity in a cathedral

The moved, confused and impressed.

Stuart Haynes

Stuart is communications director for the Diocese of Liverpool.

An art structure of a circular peak sits on the chequered floor of a cathedral.

Monadic Singularity, Anish Kapoor, Liverpool Cathedral.

Rob Battersby.

In the summer of 2024 thousands of visitors came to Liverpool Cathedral and encountered the challenging artwork of celebrated international artist Anish Kapoor. In his first exhibition in Liverpool for over 44 years these works were displayed as part of our centenary celebrations.

They caused a stir. Some were moved, some were confused, many were impressed but there were not many who entered our building that did not have an opinion. As a surprise to us we did not get many questioning why we allowed these pieces into the sacred presence of a cathedral church disrupting the places where worship occurs. Most recognised that this carefully curated exhibition used its artwork to speak to both the building and the pieces themselves.

But we must ask ourselves the question what is the point? What does a vibrant worshipping community such as Liverpool Cathedral stand to gain? Our architecture is impressive, you can’t miss us in the city so why rock the boat by bringing in work from an artist of great renown and great controversy?

The creativity comes through the careful curation of work that speaks to the human condition and ultimately our relationship with God.

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The answer surely lies in two places.

Firstly, there’s the long tradition the church has in using art to tell Jesus’s story to the world. Visit any church and you will likely see a stained-glass window impressively depicting a biblical story like a medieval Banksy. Our worship services can be seen as theatre and performance with choreographed liturgical movements, stunning choral pieces or magnificent contemporary music. The communion prayer acts like a Shakespearian soliloquy retelling the dramatic story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Art and theatre are intermeshed with the church. Liverpool Cathedral has a number of permanent and temporary art works including work from Elizabeth Frink and our iconic Tracey Emin neon light.

Secondly, like most cathedrals in the modern age Liverpool Cathedral walks the precarious path between commerciality and spirituality. To be sustainable without regular governmental support we must raise substantial money far beyond the reach of the traditional giving of a congregation. We need to be creative, we need to do things, put on events, host exhibitions to reach beyond the bounds of a traditional church audience and connect with a wider public.

Liverpool Cathedral has done this for a number of years, welcoming Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon before hosting his Gaia exhibition and then starting a long association with Peter Walker through Peace Doves, Identity and the very popular Light Before Christmas shows. These are not chosen simply to draw in the masses. That would be short-sighted, counterproductive and create the false narrative that cathedrals are more interested in money rather than the worship of God.

In Liverpool our attempts to attract people to these exhibitions are predicated on the notion that whatever a visitor's motivation when they arrive they will encounter us and through us encounter God. Last year 31,000 people saw our Christmas Sound and Light show and as a result that led to greater numbers coming to our Christmas Eve services. People want to make the connection, we need to help them in that.

If a cathedral is to use this work successfully it must help us and our visitors ask searching questions. Sure it is great fun to have a picture with one of these exhibits and most of what we do is deliberately Instagramable. However, the creativity comes through the careful curation of work that speaks to the human condition and ultimately our relationship with God. The museum of the moon and Gaia provoked many interesting conversations and debates about the relationship between science and faith alongside the age-old question of how creation came about.

Peace Doves brought together a post covid community trying to come to terms, both individually and collectively, with the impact of the Lockdown years. In bringing together a piece of community art we were able to focus minds on loss, healing and hope.

It isn’t direct, it isn’t overt but we are also not shy of the fact that we are a cathedral and we do God.

So, to Anish Kapoor. When he was Dean of our cathedral, Justin Welby, challenged us to think of the cathedral as a safe place to do risky things in the service of God. Many could say that hosting an exhibition by Anish Kapoor encapsulates that risk. Challenging, controversial and provocative his work attracts thought and creates a stir. The exhibition stands firmly in our tradition of using art to ask questions. The introduction to the exhibition booklet states that the exhibition encapsulates “the artist’s exploration of the physicality of the human body, the title – Monadic Singularity – reflects the interrelation of human existence and the universe” yet again showing a connection to God and our faith.

It isn’t direct, it isn’t overt but we are also not shy of the fact that we are a cathedral and we do God. People came to the Kapoor exhibition for a multitude of reasons. We had fine art students able to contextualise, theorise and talk sagely about Anish Kapoor and the meaning behind his work, we had families with young children enjoying being able to run around and interact with the works, we had people completely bemused or making wild guesses as to what it all meant. That gives an opening to help us have the conversation about the God that means so much to us and how we interpret this art in the light of our faith.

Cathedrals are places of creativity and need to remain that way. Cathedrals have the opportunity to bring many people through their doors every day. Art can do that and as we have seen since mediaeval times can help us and others understand God and their place in life.