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The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s
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About This Book
The origins of our postsecular present, revealed in a vivid, groundbreaking account of the moment when popular culture became the site of religious conflict.The 1980s are usually seen as a slick, shrill decade. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers urged "Death to America"; Ronald Reagan was in the White House, backed by the Moral Majority; John Paul II was asserting Catholic traditionalism and denouncing homosexuality, as were the televangelists on cable TV. And yet "crypto-religious" artists pushed back against the spirit of the age, venturing into vexed areas where politicians and clergy were loath to go—and anticipating the postsecular age we are living in today.That is the story Paul Elie tells in this enthralling group portrait. Here's Leonard Cohen writing "Hallelujah" in a Times Square hotel room; Andy Warhol adapting Leonardo's The Last Supper in response to the AIDS crisis; Prince making the cross and altar into "signs of the times." Through Toni Morrison the spirits of the enslaved speak from the grave; Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen deepen the tent-revival intensity of their work; U2, Morrissey, and Sinéad O'Connor give voice to the anguish of young people who were raised religious; Wim Wenders offers an angel's-eye view of Berlin. And Martin Scorsese overcomes fundamentalist opposition to make The Last Temptation of Christ—a struggle that anticipates Salman Rushdie's struggle with Islam in The Satanic Verses.
Reviews
"Still, its scope also feels narrow, as if this argument largely happened in New York."
"Incontrovertibly erudite and panoramic, but also crowded, sometimes confounding and walled off from the present moment — when crypto is actual currency — to which its subject matter is so foundational."
"A thought-provoking evaluation of religious-themed art of the 1980s."
"It adds up to an intriguing yet disorganized portrait of a tumultuous decade."
"His expansive vision of the '80s rings out like a clarion call for a new era of rigorous artistic engagement with the unknowable and the unseen."
"Readers may not always agree with Elie's contentions in this fascinating, well-written book, but they will never be bored."
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