Review: Christian Jankowski: Casting Jesus

Casting Jesus is both familiar and unknown simultaneously.

Jankowski’s manipulates our familiarity with the format of the game show. The right-hand screen presents us with a close-up of a panel of three judges. Dog collars aside, this could be a still from your TV on a Saturday night.  The left-hand screen, however, presents us with 13 different Jesus’ going through various motions such as performing a miracle, interpreting their favourite Jesus quote, and displaying a range of emotions. These actors are theatrically positioned against the backdrop of the Complesso Santo Spirito, Rome, creating a powerful spiritual image. The two screens present us with worlds far apart in time, space and content.

‘Good walking.’ ‘He has the face.’ ‘I want Jesus spontaneous and natural.’ ‘He needs more pathos.’

You are left stuck somewhere between shock and amusement as Jankowski questions the basis of our society and its modes of representation. He makes you acknowledge the ‘blurred distinctions between art, religion, reality and fiction.’ You are invited to participate, to bring your own opinion to the work, but somehow you struggle to; things that were once familiar feel unknown, and one is aware, at all times, that you too are a victim of all that Jankowski criticises.

[Review by Olivia Mull]