Ewe? Rams have horns!
Posted on 02/24/2024 11:04:33 AM PST by nickcarraway
A Shahzia Sikander sculpture has become the subject of controversy after a powerful anti-abortion group claimed that the work promotes “satanic” imagery.
The sculpture, which was acclaimed by critics when it appeared in New York’s Madison Square Park last year, was intended to explore the relationship between femininity and power.
Titled Witness (2023), the work features a female figure who levitates above the ground, her arms and legs dissolving into rootlike forms. She floats within the armature of a hoop skirt that contains mosaics depicting plants. She wears a lacy collar in allusion to similar ones worn by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court justice.
A gold-toned sculpture of a woman with spiraling braids of hair. In place of her arms, she has winding, intersecting abstract forms. Having Excelled as a Painter, Shahzia Sikander Is Mastering an Unexpected New Medium: Sculpture Shahzia Sikander Goes to Sean Kelly Gallery in New York Sikander has said that the work, which debuted alongside another sculpture, was, in part, a response to the paring back of abortion rights in the United States, including the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
Amid those developments, Sikander wrote in a statement accompanying the work, came a dismissal of “the indefatigable spirit of women who have been collectively fighting for their right to their own bodies over generations. However, the enduring power lies with the people who step into and remain in the fight for equality. That spirit and grit is what I want to capture in both the sculptures.”
Now, the work is to appear next week at the University of Houston in Texas. Some conservative groups have called for it not to go on view at all, calling its imagery abject.
Earlier this month, Texas Right to Life, a self-described “pro-life” organization that has been credited with helping undo Roe v. Wade, claimed the work enlists “satanic imagery to honor abortion and memorialize the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” although it did not describe what that imagery was. (Sikander’s artist statement about the work contains no mention of satanism.)
“Disobedience to God certainly should not be esteemed by society, much less lauded with a statue,” the group wrote. “On the contrary, art should reflect truth, goodness, and beauty: three timeless values that reveal the nature of God. Art cannot have beauty without truth. Art cannot have truth without goodness. A statue honoring child sacrifice has no place in Texas.”
The Sikander work has previously been a subject of controversy in conservative media, with Fox News having run a report on X users calling the sculpture “demonic” in 2023.
Sikander did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Axios reported that Texas Right to Life had been referring to a booklet about Witness published by the Madison Square Park Conservancy that mentioned Abrahamic religions, which refer to horned beings.
“The trope is not the artist’s alone: horned gods and goddesses abound in world religions, from ancient Egypt and Greece to other parts and eras of Africa and Europe. In the Abrahamic faiths the horned beast is associated with forces of evil, chaos, and destruction—the devil himself,” critic Aruna D’Souza writes in the booklet.
D’Souza continues, “but again, Sikander reveals to us what’s really at stake in such conceptions. In the biblical story of creation, Satan and Eve are intertwined the way a snake wraps around a tree limb; woman is the vehicle for iniquity, the temptress, the instrument of evil. Sikander takes this idea, one that runs through so many cultures and epochs and philosophies—of woman as a threat, as an embodiment of unspeakable desire, as taint—and turns negativity into power. Her Eve, her Havah, sports her horns like a crown, as a point of pride. She understands the endless projections onto herself as her strength.”
In an FAQ about Witness, the University of Houston acknowledged that the work might be “offensive to some people,” adding that “the sculpture has braids shaped like ram horns, representing the unification of disparate strands. Ram horns have significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as Central and South Asian beliefs, often associated with power and valor. The artist has said the braids link to one of her paintings that represents the courage, fluidity and resilience of the feminine.”
The Sikander sculpture is the latest in a series of artworks that right-wing groups have labeled “satanic.” Others include performances by Marina Abramović and a Simone Leigh sculpture that temporarily appeared in the former site of a Robert E. Lee monument in New Orleans.
I can’t believe that piece of garbage is now in Texas! Must be in Austin. Someone needs to take a hacksaw and blowtorch to it!
Well we can say it is hideous and it is easy to see why some would think it is Satanic. It belongs in NY that’s for sure.
(Titled Witness (2023), the work features a female figure who levitates above the ground, her arms and legs dissolving into rootlike forms. She floats within the armature of a hoop skirt that contains mosaics depicting plants. She wears a lacy collar in allusion to similar ones worn by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court justice.)
These types of weird displays are the work of the Deceiver and the goats 🐐🐐🐐 blinded by the Dark Principalities and Powers of the Heavenly Realms.
Verse 5:
John 1:1-5
King James Version
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In Him was Life; and the Life was the Light of men.
5 And the Light shineth in Darkness; and the Darkness comprehended it not.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A1-5&version=KJV
Sikander and the University of Houston have clearly manipulated and exploited Texas Right to Life into providing free publicity for their exhibit.
Pronto!
The artist, Shahzia Sikander, would like to thank Texas Right to Life for the free publicity that the sculpture would not have otherwise received.
Ewe? Rams have horns!
Some female sheep do, too. Depends on the breed.
Well if you don’t believe l would not expect you would see anything Satanic about it. It’s often said Lucifer’s greatest trick is convincing the world he does not exist.
"Your Culture Will Adapt to Service Us."
In her lair, the Borg Queen remains disembodied with just her head and spinal column — the epitome of perfection — with no remnants of her humanoid form. When she leaves her home base for assimilation efforts, she will reassemble herself into a predominantly artificial body.
“I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg.”
The Borg; There is a submergence of all individuality in the collective. Dante would say that there is confusion of persons in hell.
It has what looks like hair styled to resemble horns. Is that what makes it ‘satanic’?
Does the Bible tell us what Satan looks like?
Have you ever met ‘satan’, and know what he/she/it looks like?
I think the image was created by humans and stuck in the human psyche. Maybe they were weirded-out by goats or something...
The artist’s description of the meaning of the statue mentions nothing about ‘satan’. Now, if you believe abortion is ‘satanic’, I guess that’s another issue...
(Wikipedia--- enough info for discussion purposes. )
Main article: Horned God Neopaganism
In 1933, the Egyptologist Margaret Murray published the book, The God of the Witches, in which she theorised that Pan was merely one form of a horned god who was worshipped across many European cultures. This theory influenced the Neopagan notion of the Horned God, as an archetype of male virility and sexuality. In Wicca, the archetype of the Horned God is highly important, and is thought by believers to be represented by such deities as the Celtic Cernunnos, Indian Pashupati and Greek Pan.[citation needed]
Horned God in Wiccan based neopagan religions represents a solar god often associated with vegetation, that's honoured as the Holly King or Oak King in Neopagan rituals.[49] Most often, the Horned God is considered a male fertility god.[50] The use of horns as a symbol for power dates back to the ancient world. From ancient Egypt and the Ba'al worshipping Cannanites, to the Greeks, Romans, Celts, and various other cultures.[51] Horns have ever been present in religious imagery as symbols of fertility and power.[52][53] It was not until Christianity attributed horns to Satan as part of his iconography that horned gods became associated with evil in Western mythology:[54]
Many modern neo-Pagans focus their worship on a horned god, or often "the" Horned God and one or more goddesses. Deities such as Pan and Dionysus have had attributes of their worship imported into the Neopagan concept as have the Celtic Cernunnos and Gwynn ap Nudd, one of the mythological leaders of the Wild Hunt.[55][56][57][58]
But those aren’t equivalent to Satan, either originally or as they were incorporated into later belief systems.
Despising the horned god and ‘making satan in his image’ seems to have simply equated with despising and demonizing all past religions.
It has rams horns and woman’s breasts and piping where there should be arms.
Agree-I’m pretty sure Satan/Lucifer/Beelzebub/Devil or whatever name he goes by has as many forms as he has names, I believe he is the representation and essence of evil-not a being per se. Appearing as something beautiful and appealing would certainly steal more souls than something ugly by appearing trustworthy and nice-that is why we are cautioned not to trust until we know the nature of the person asking for it. We know that even the most beautiful person can be evil-plenty of those are in prisons, or have come to a justifiably bad end. The Bible doesn’t say that evil is always ugly...
That statue is just an ugly piece of art, and insulting to women, as well-it does not need to be satanic to be repulsive-I wouldn’t even put that thing on a meth cooker’s property...
Yes, it’s very ugly ‘art’.
I just think it’s extremely dangerous psychologically and spiritually to believe in ‘Satan’ as profoundly as some people apparently do, even to the extent of picturing ‘him’ in their minds.
(And I think human beings are perfectly capable of fomenting all kinds of evil without any supernatural help from a ‘devil’.)
Sheesh what a silly argument.
Well, where did you get your own concept of what ‘Satan’ looks like?
Obviously people have a concept, or they wouldn’t call this statue ‘satanic’.
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