A Prayer For Wings Of Ire
WE LIVE in an age of angels. Celestial beings appear in the titles of beauty parlours and pubs, hairdressers and IT companies, limousine services and clothing manufacturers. They are embodied in wingless infants with fashionable names such as Raphael and Gabriel or in adults called Angelo, Angela or plain old Michael, "the militant archangel". (The trend has not yet embraced "the proud rebellious archangel" Lucifer, but you never know.)
Angels hover over Christmas pageants, hens' nights, Mardi Gras and any other event where participants strap on a pair of wings and flutter about waiting to fall. They can open a dinner party - angel-on-horseback is a retro dish of oysters wrapped in bacon, grilled and served on toast- and close it in the form of angel-food cake.
Angels sparkle on trashy T-shirts (along with princesses and devils), they crash through ceilings in television events such as Angels in America and chat with winemakers in Elizabeth Knox's best-selling novel The Vintner's Luck.
In our supposedly secular nation, God's attendants have multiplied and moved beyond core duties such as telling virgins they are pregnant, smiling chubby smiles above the baby Jesus or watching, in sad marble, over the graves of infants and other innocents.
Heavenly creatures dangle permanently over popular culture and at this time of year, with Christmas trees, front doors and shop windows needing to be decorated, angels reach pest status. Like seagulls or pigeons, I want to shoo them away.
Part of the reason for the pesky-angel syndrome, I think, is that too many contemporary angels are purely decorative. They have been denuded of the darker, more complicated meanings of their biblical ancestors.
Heavenly Creatures, a new show at Heide Museum of Modern Art about "the enduring resonance of the angel motif" in Australian art, is a tonic for anyone hankering for flaming swords and other accessories sported by more troubled angels. The angels here are black as well as white. Trent Parkes' lovely photograph of bored angels in central Sydney is displayed next to a Jesse Marlow shot of Ngukurr Bulldogs footballers in which the club's winged insignia appears to sprout from the coach's back.
Linde Ivimey's creepy writhing cupids, Strangels & Terubs, are baby-sized creatures made from recycled plastic. Like many other artists in this timely show, Ivimey's angels evoke suffering and loss. I wouldn't put them on the top of my Christmas tree, but it was good to be reminded that angels can be strangels, too
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