Los Angeles artist Michael Arata invited me to write the introductory essay to his catalog, Virgin "T"s, that would accompany a one-person exhibition of his work at the California State University in San Bernardino in the fall of last year. Michael, a long-time resident of Los Angeles, has exhibited his eccentric and often humorous works in several Southern California galleries, in the US and abroad in France and Belgium. The Virgin "T"s in this body of work, some of which are actual silk screened T-shirts, are in part a response, albeit a sometimes biting one, to the continued fraying of the separation between Church and State and all the political, social, and commercial ramifications that entails. In the essay below, I strove to be as provocative and visceral as the work before me.
FAITH FASHION
You shouldn’t believe that the T-Shirt you’re likely wearing right now is a modern invention. By today’s standards, a T-Shirt is a walking bulletin board with your favourite designer label silk-screened onto it. Michael Arata knows this already because ancient history taught him that the boys in marketing around the time that Jesus was dining on his last bit of foie gras, commonly referred to as the Last Supper, had an enlightening idea for Jesus’ resurrection. On the third day, Jesus rose with a T-Shirt made out of distressed cotton painted purple that said in Times New Roman: “I went to Mount Golgotha and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt”.
However, the “tee” shirt as it is also affectionately called was really the brain child of Mary, the Virgin. Her nickname the Virgin fit her like a “T”. And while we’re at it, here’s something else you might not know about the Virgin Mary. You probably confuse the story of Mary and the Immaculate Conception with a virgin birth, angels, and the like, but it didn’t quite happen that way. According to the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia, “The Immaculate Conception is a Catholic dogma that asserts Mary, the mother of Jesus, was preserved by God from the stain of original sin at the time of HER own conception”. Furthermore, “Mary was conceived by normal biological means (her parents had sex), but her soul was acted upon by God or kept immaculate”. Mary grew up living a life completely free of sin and stayed a Virgin Mary. Fortunately, peer pressure in those days was nothing compared to today. For the record, it was the Miraculous Conception, not the Immaculate Conception nor L’Immaculée Conception by André Breton and Paul Eluard, that involved the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary.
That historic event marked the first time since the birth of (wo)MAN that virginity became both a liability and a commodity, simultaneously: a burden from birth, yet a treasure to be protected by overly zealous fathers and chastity belts, only to be unlocked within the sanctity of marriage; a prize commodity sought after so ardently, perhaps even more than the Holy Grail, which every man swore his honour and allegiance to but so very few actually had partaken. Mary understood this dilemma and when the Angel Gabriel swooped down from the Heavens to announce his fertile message, Mary was already wearing a T-Shirt that said “What, me worry?” Only since James Dean hit the movie screens in a virgin white T-Shirt and faded blue jeans that clung to his ass like Pamela Anderson’s tits in a wet t-shirt contest have T-Shirts enjoyed such popularity. That is, of course, until Michael Arata got a hold of them.
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