GOD IS BEAUTIFUL, UGLY, DEAD: NAVID KERMANI, FERIDUN ZAIMOGLU AND (MORE THAN) CHRISTIAN ART

Abstract

Navid Kermani's and Feridun Zaimoglu's engagements as Muslims with Christian art reveal the possibilities and limitations of aesthetic experiences of the divine beyond all doctrinal divides. Although Kermani's own research into the aesthetic dimension of Islam highlights the potential for art to offer spiritual insight, his rejection of some Christian imagery, especially of the crucifix, in his book Ungläubiges Staunen: Über das Christentum (2015), suggests this potential has limits which are not only matters of subjective taste but also epistemological barriers that are difficult to overcome. However, some of Kermani's interpretations lead to a syncretic understanding of Christian and Islamic ideas and aesthetics, pointing towards new notions of the divine. Similarly, Zaimoglu's series of contemporary icons featuring Jesus and other Biblical figures opens up spiritual possibilities beyond religious divides through their ambiguous links to Christianity and Islam. This distinction between an experience of the divine across religious boundaries and its failure can be theorised through Jean-Luc Marion's understanding of the ‘icon’ and the ‘idol’ respectively, whereby the former returns the viewer's gaze and unleashes a destabilising openness to the sacred, whereas the latter involves the dominant gaze of the viewer and reinforces what they already know.