Exploring Common Ground:
Aspects of Canon Bill Hall’s work in the visual arts
Robert Cooper

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE APRIL 2001 BULLETIN OF THE ART AND CHRISTIANTY ENQUIRY.

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"Bill Hall has made a huge contribution to all the arts and in particular the visual arts in the North of England. He initiated the Durham Cathedral residency. He brought Bill Viola’s installation to the Cathedral as part of Visual Arts Year in 1996 — probably the highlight of the entire year’s programme. He is a passionate advocate for the artist as part of society. The region and the artists he has befriended owe him a huge debt. He really has made a major long term difference to the arts in the region."
(Peter Hewitt, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of England)

Such a tribute is significant, not only because of who it comes from — someone who, during his years with Northern Arts, worked closely with Bill Hall - but because of where it comes from — the heart of the arts community. As a colleague for nearly fifteen years, it is clear to me that the Church, on the other hand, has been slower to recognize one of its most innovative members.

This is perhaps because it has always been fundamental to Bill Hall’s approach to engage with artists on their own terms. As Virginia Bodman, first artist-in-residence at Durham Cathedral and now Head of Painting at the University of Sunderland says, "Artists are often viewed with suspicion and mistrust, even by arts professionals — Bill Hall likes artists and trusts them absolutely, often introducing them into situations where he could be held responsible if things go wrong. Once he has had an idea where art or an artist could extend or invigorate a situation, he relentlessly uses his charm, enthusiasm and marvellous powers of persuasion to make things happen, often taking the less enthusiastic along with him. He strongly believes that artists’ ideas and views should be listened to and not watered down by a committee approach".

Because Hall believes that the arts are essential to the health of any society, the Church’s primary role as he sees it is therefore to support and encourage the arts for their own sake, not simply to make use of them for purposes of decoration, enhancing worship or illustrating some theological point. He prefers to seek what he calls the common ground inhabited by artists and Christians and the exciting possibilities that emerge when it is explored together.

Central to this approach is the place of truth. For Hall, truth is truth, as one of von Balthasar’s trinity, along with beauty and goodness. Artists contribute, therefore, not as mere illustrators of the Church’s truths, but because they have their own perception of the truth to share. Even though it may not always be expressed in religious terms, if it is true it has the power to enlarge our vision of life.

Thus, whilst acknowledging the importance of the work of people like Walter Hussey, Hall therefore sees his purpose as in some fundamental way different. How different was well illustrated by a commission given to acclaimed video artist Bill Viola. Asked by Hall, on behalf of the Chaplaincy to the Arts and Recreation, to create an installation for Durham Cathedral to mark the UK Year of the Visual Arts, Viola’s response was The Messenger. In this work a waterbound figure rises from the depths to emerge and take a breath of life, before sinking back beneath the surface. The cycle is repeated five times over a twenty-five minute period. Having witnessed the work, critic Waldemar Januszczak described The Messenger as "one of the finest pieces of 20th century church art I have seen, perhaps the finest". (The Sunday Times, 15 September, 1996)

This comment is interesting because neither Viola, nor the Chaplaincy in its brief, was seeking to create "church art" in the sense, say, of Sutherland’s Crucifixion at St Matthew’s, Northampton. Certainly, the placing of The Messenger by the cathedral font gave it deep resonances of baptism and new life, but in no way was the work intended to be illustrative of these truths. Even so, it appealed to Januszczak as "church art".

That it did so is surely evidence of what happens when the dialogue between Church and artist is carried out in terms of the human. The universality of the themes in The Messenger — birth, death, becoming, dissolution, re-integration — allowed a dialogue containing more specifically theological concerns to emerge. The use of more traditional iconography might well have closed off such debate, by demanding that it happen on the Church’s terms or not at all.

However, where Hall is at one with Hussey is in the conviction that the Church should work with the best artists. Sometimes, of course, these may be Christians, but Hall rejects the use of artists simply because they are believers and therefore perceived as trustworthy. In his view, that is to risk ending up with the second rate, and to restrict the possibilities inherent in the theological exploration he seeks. He, on the other hand, wishes artists to be trusted to look far and deep. Their task is like that of the Holy Spirit, "to open eyes that are closed, hearts that are unaware and minds that shrink from too much reality" (The Go-Between God, John V. Taylor, SCM Press, 1972, p.19). Hall contends that eyes are opened, not just by faith, but by vision. It is also his view that a non-believing artist of genuine vision is more likely to open wider avenues of thought and experience for the Church than a Christian artist, who may well feel that the theology has already been done and merely needs illustrating. For Hall personally, as a Christian, traditional iconography has great depths of meaning. Recognizing, however, that through over familiarity this is often missed, he looks to artists for fresh ways of enabling the encounter with truth.

Hall put this into practice in a recent project that aimed to expand the possibilities in the process of commissioning work for churches. Not surprisingly, the results were not always popular. At one church, for example, designs for a Laudian fall were rejected by the church council. Hall was undaunted. Better to risk something ground-breaking and fail, than timidly resign oneself to something anodyne.

Another key aspect of Hall’s work in the visual arts has been the establishment of artist’s residencies. His work in this field goes back to the beginning of the 1970’s and is exemplified by the Durham Cathedral residency, which was established with the help of various partners in 1983. His key concern in this residency is the same as in all the others — that the primary beneficiary must always be the artist. As he explains, "No expectations are placed on the artist beyond the challenge of responding to the cathedral, which is an extraordinary work of art in its own right. The artist has been chosen because he or she is at a critical stage of development and the residency provides space to progress or to explore new directions." In this way the residency witnesses to the value of the arts in human existence and challenges both Church and community to recognize them as God’s gifts.

Another long-standing Chaplaincy project is Art in Northern Churches. Through this, limited numbers of challenging artworks are placed temporarily, but for significant periods of time, in parish churches. "Naturally I am involved in permanent commissions, but the temporary siting of appropriate work is a passionate concern of mine," says Hall. "The work makes its contribution, but then goes before the viewer can become immune to its presence". The project also enables local people to gain an insight into the creative process through direct contact with the artists.

Back in the 1970’s, when Art in Northern Churches was born, Hall was a pioneer of exploring the new possibilities that emerge when art is taken out of the "white cube" of the gallery and placed in other settings. Now, ironically, he is concerned at the use of churches for large exhibitions that fail to relate the work on show to its setting. As he explains, "For reasons of appropriateness, content, form and scale not all artworks are seen to best advantage in churches any more, of course, than all are necessarily seen to best advantage in galleries." He cites the criteria he established with Durham Cathedral as a means of avoiding exhibitions which compromise the integrity both of the Church and the artist’s work.

The validity of showing non-confessional artworks in churches at all has, however, been questioned by Richard Davey in his review of a recent exhibition of sculpture in Malmesbury Abbey (Church Times, 4 August, 2000). Though conceding that the works in this particular exhibition "have been carefully chosen and sited, and many have taken on unforeseen nuances and meanings through the influence of their sacred setting", he still concluded that "there is an overriding sense that they are an alien imposition on the space they inhabit". The reason for this, suggests Davey, is that churches celebrate community and transcendence, whilst modern art is "often concerned with individuality and the reality of the everyday." Taking account of what Hall says above, he would clearly support the view that works of art can be an "alien imposition". However, he would also be likely to argue that this results from failing properly to address questions of appropriateness, content, form and scale, rather than just those reasons advanced by Davey. Davey’s argument also presumes an unjustified division between secular and sacred, thus missing the point that all life, not just the life of eternity, is God’s. It also runs counter to the incarnational truth that God is primarily encountered in the everyday. As St John has it, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands….we proclaim to you." (1 John 1.1ff).

It is just such an incarnational theology that has informed Bill Hall’s work during more than thirty years as a chaplain to the arts and recreation. Whilst the Church provides his own foundation, it is nonetheless a base from which to explore, and he has been able to go beyond its borders to engage in a dialogue with artists. As a result, the door of that Church has swung both ways - letting the light of Christ spill out into the world, but also allowing it to shine back into that same institution through the illumination of the arts.

For further information contact Robert Cooper