Here are your weekend must reads. Catholic ceremony and visual icons seem to have affected Ed Ruscha's artwork, which has been displayed all over the world. New book explores Neil Connolly's priesthood and the many ways he learned to be a priest of the people in the South Bronx from the 1960s to the 1980s.
If Ed Ruscha's name is unfamiliar, you're in extensive company. Since 2015, Google searches for obsolete mimeographs have outpaced those for the Catholic-born octogenarian, whom museums practically venerate, from the London Tate to Los Angeles' Broad. For those who extol price tags, a 1964 Ruscha oil painting sold in November 2019 for nearly $52.5 million.
If you've reached the Museum of Modern Art's 404 error page, you've seen Ruscha's "OOF" (1962) — blocky, yellow letters against a deep blue field. Everyone understands the word "oof," though it's nonsensical, according to independent scholar and curator Alexandra Schwartz, who finds the work amusing. "It sums up how he takes verbal language and turns it into something visual in a way that you don't expect," she said.
The unexpected, along with Ruscha's Catholicism, emerges in the Oklahoma Contemporary show Schwartz co-curated — Ruscha's first solo exhibit in the state where he grew up.
Catholic ceremony and visual icons have affected him subtly and appear occasionally in his work, but there are no direct references to the Catholic Church, according to responses the museum provided from Ruscha. "I am a confirmed atheist today, but the church helped me get where I am."
You can read more about the exhibit here.
Angel Garcia's book, The Kingdom Began in Puerto Rico: Neil Connolly's Priesthood in the South Bronx, explores Connolly's priesthood and the many ways he learned to be a priest of the people from the 1960s to the 1980s. This book is about how Connolly struggled with what it meant to be a priest in a Vatican II Church, and a priest of the South Bronx.
"In one sense, this book is a biography of a priest trying to make sense of his own authority and mission," writes NCR book reviewer Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada. "In another sense, this book offers a social and religious history of the South Bronx during a time when residents struggled with poverty, deteriorating infrastructure and a lack of services."
Throughout the book, which was based on dozens of interviews with Connolly (named a monsignor in 1995), who died in 2017, as well as historical research, we see a priest frustrated with the hierarchy, with New York's archdiocese, and those at the top who seldom took the time to visit the Bronx, even as the people there faced an "unholy trinity" of epidemics: poverty, heroin and crime. Connolly often felt like parishioners were invisible to those at headquarters — he was frustrated with symbolic shows of power and diocesan inaction.
You can read more of the book review here.
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Weekend wrap-up
I hope you haven't missed the first week of our series, Building a Common Future, in which we asked Catholic politicians, activists and scholars to offer advice to President-elect Joe Biden.
"Building our common future: It's what the United States, indeed, the entire world needs right now," we wrote in an editorial introducing the series.
You can read Monday's commentary from Sen. Tim Kaine on immigration here. Tuesday's commentary from Dwayne David Paul on community policing can be found here. Wednesday's commentary from Marie Dennis on U.S. foreign policy and national security can be read here. Thursday's commentary from Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell on fair wages, just tax policies and support for labor organizations can be found here. And Friday's commentary from Tia Noelle Pratt on systemic racism in our society can be read here.
See you next weekend,
Stephanie Yeagle
Managing Editor
[email protected]
Twitter: @ncrSLY
