December 24, 2004
The Gospel of Judas Thomas The Twin Of Jesus Of Nazareth
The Twin, 2003. 30 x 48 inches. Acrylic and pen on Arches paper with collage.
by Jerome du Bois
This piece -- part of my "Not Only Words" series -- was inspired by the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, the legend (which I learned from Harold Bloom) about Jesus having a twin, and a ten-year immersion, long ago, as a born-again Christian. The I figures in this piece have been separately cut out and glued in two rows to the fuschia background, as you can see from this enlarged detail.
One version of the Gospel of Thomas says that
the Kingdom of God is within you and without you, not in buildings made of wood and stone. Split the wood and you'll find Me; lift the stone and I will be there.
I no longer believe that Jesus was God, but he was probably the best of us, and he summons the best within us.
And one of those things is courage -- the courage to laugh at death. Tomorrow, in the Christian story, a particularly cruel, thirty-three-year human arc begins, redeemed only if one believes in resurrection. If one doesn't . . .
In the very center of this piece I have printed, glyptically, in hot pink gel pen, this sentence, which is engraved on Marcel Duchamp's tombstone:
D'ailleurs, c'est toujours les autres qui meurent.
In English:
Besides, it's always the others who die.
The best laugh from the grave I've ever heard. We're all in this together.
As I've written elsewhere, I am the ultimate sucker: I believe in people. Not divine intervention or salvation. We must save each other.
We can.
Posted by Jerome at December 24, 2004 08:10 PM | TrackBack