Robust and consuming competition, the traditional trigger of artistic innovation is an abiding ethic with my avid compadre Currado Malaspina. "Depict the Vicar," the recent world-wide call to pencil and brush sponsored by UNNGO certainly brought out, if not the best at least the oddball in my dear, unpredictable friend Currado.
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| Currado Malaspina, "The State of Apostates" 2011 |
The parameters of the agon were quite simple: Depict an image of The Vicar of Yahweh using any type of media, in any format on any scale. The variety of work submitted to the UNNGO was truly astounding and speaks well of the international artistic community. The painter Jean-Paul Paulson from Brugge did a terrific oversized woodcut that may have been a bit too offensive for some of the judges. Dahlia Danton, currently living in India, incorporated images of Ganesh, Rajiv Montonaghanev and Rabindranath Tagore into a expertly executed Van Eyck like egg tempera painting. Not to be outdone, Shari-Lea Grossbard from Bethesda made a mural-sized quilt based on the Mosaic and Wiccan traditions.
The clear winner, though not without controversy, was Berlin's Manfred Fruchtwasser whose understated pastel on paper struck the jury as both lovely and appropriate.
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| UNNEGO "Depict the Vicar" judge Seymour Naqshbandi with Manfred Fruchtwasser's winning drawing. |
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