Dual Symbolism I
I work now since three years with the cross. And with the growing expierence of working with church-professionals I ask myself: How much has that - what we today call christian religion (with the churches, bible, pope, etc.) - to do with the original idea of the rebell jesus?
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A crucified Jesus, who, instead of breaking out into the cry “God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15, 34), defiantly stretches the fingers to the sky? Ralf Kopp has developed his own view of the scene on Golgotha. The hand which has been broken free from the cross formulates successively victory sign, devils horn and many more. Does Ralf Kopp want to shock? Does he want to provoke narrow-minded notions of piety with little blasphemies? At first glance, this may be so.
But the photo and video artist, who works since a few years with the cross and tries to get it back down to the ground, opens a wider horizon with the new series. Whatever the - far outside the image staying - Jesus tells, it adds itself to a signal system. Sign languages are as old as widespread: already the North American Indians understood sign languages. Not to forget the communication system of the deaf. There is something very universal in Ralf Kopp‘s photo series, something showing more than the familiar Golgotha event. One could read the hands as a sign of the continuing will to self-assert and communicate of the people of the world, who are all at some point in history already have been nailed to the cross.
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A crucified Jesus, who, instead of breaking out into the cry “God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15, 34), defiantly stretches the fingers to the sky? Ralf Kopp has developed his own view of the scene on Golgotha. The hand which has been broken free from the cross formulates successively victory sign, devils horn and many more. Does Ralf Kopp want to shock? Does he want to provoke narrow-minded notions of piety with little blasphemies? At first glance, this may be so.
But the photo and video artist, who works since a few years with the cross and tries to get it back down to the ground, opens a wider horizon with the new series. Whatever the - far outside the image staying - Jesus tells, it adds itself to a signal system. Sign languages are as old as widespread: already the North American Indians understood sign languages. Not to forget the communication system of the deaf. There is something very universal in Ralf Kopp‘s photo series, something showing more than the familiar Golgotha event. One could read the hands as a sign of the continuing will to self-assert and communicate of the people of the world, who are all at some point in history already have been nailed to the cross.
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