“And thank you to God, for making me an atheist!” I got a lot of satisfaction out of Ricky Gervais’ closing statement at the Golden Globes: something about the ambiguity of inheriting a tradition in which one is clearly an outsider, epitomizing itself in a statement of humor. I got a similar charge out of Meg Hitchcock’s Obsession: The Book of Revelation from the Koran installation at Famous Accountants Gallery.
Hitchcock’s practice draws her to reconfigure religious texts—letter by letter—into other religious texts or intricate graphic patterns. “Obsession” moves the text from framed pieces to the bare gallery walls. Cutting apart an English translation of the Koran, Islam’s holy scripture, she recreates all 22 chapters of the Bible’s Book of Revelation, in an elaborate and exhausting stream that scrolls across the gallery walls, ceiling and floor.
From Meg Hitchcock’s Obsession.
As a title, “Obsession” is spot on. Taking 135 hours to glue the individual letters after months of cutting apart a Koran, the process mirrors acts of devotion that pious people have embarked upon for centuries. The text snakes around the gallery, twisting over itself and coiling in loops. The Christian Book is punctuated by a motif in Hitchcock’s work, “om namah shivaya,” the holy name of the Hindu god Shiva, and a brief digression into a verse from the Koran.
The use of words unites these religious traditions and serves to open a portal to the divine. Obsession is not so much about Christianity or Islam, or the possibility of the End of Times, but it is about reasons for religion and devotion. By ignoring the persistent dogma and fundamentalism prevalent in all religions, Hitchcock addresses a more core issue: the human necessity for gods, and the morphology of the divine.
–
Through March 27, Famous Accountants Gallery, 1673 Gates Ave., Brooklyn, famousaccountants.wordpress.com.
