How do we ‘modernize’ the suffering of Christ on the cross? How do we depict His suffering so that we can best understand the brutality of our sin? One artist has tried:
“This piece was originally created by Jackson Potts II, for a collection of works hanging in Xnihilo Gallery. The installation is a modern take on the traditional Stations of the Cross, and the gallery requested 15 artists to each depict one of the stations. Due to reasons which will be explained in subsequent posts, the gallery was not able to hang this piece. We invite you to view it here and to comment upon it.
Here is Jackson’s artist statement.
Jesus Falls for the Second Time.
When I came up with this idea for my piece, one of the things that I wanted to show was that Jesus was innocent, and the crowd still wanted him to die. So I used a child (my brother Dietrich) to show the innocence of Jesus and how wrong it was for him to be treated that way. The police officer was just doing his job, as was the guard that was escorting Jesus to Skull Hill. The crowd was angry and violent except the one girl in the blue dress, who represents the people who loved Jesus.”
Here is the link to view the photo (it is brutal but thought provoking):