Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art.

Soukup, Paul A.

Edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. Translated from various languages by Charlotte Bigg, Richard Carpenter, Sarah Clift, Jennifer Dawes, Jeremy Gaines, June Klinger, Liz Libbrecht, Matthew Partridge, and Lisa Rosenblatt. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2002. Pp. 703. $45.

Given the human record of making and breaking images, one can be forgiven for supposing that humans feel ambivalent toward images. The essays collected here prove that supposition false. We humans take images very seriously indeed--why bother breaking something that does not matter?

Iconoclash--a combination academic collection and catalogue for an exhibit at the Center for New Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany--carefully and successfully addresses the tension in human affairs introduced by images. Almost every culture destroys images--the better known clashes in the West range from the eponymous iconoclasts of the eighth century, to the Protestant Reformers in the 16th, to the Taliban in our own day. While Iconoclash addresses the breaking, its focus rests on the images.

Each of the 15 sections of this massive and richly illustrated volume follows a similar structure, with a long situating essay (historical or philosophical in nature) accompanied by shorter commentaries on events or works of art. Because the works of art are "recovered," that is, rescued or shown damaged or reproduced or repaired, the commentaries serve an educational purpose, explaining particular works and the circumstances of their creation, destruction, and rehabilitation.

As a whole, the collection provides a comprehensive history of image breaking, a phenomenon that appears across the world on a regular basis, spurred on by religious, political, and even artistic motivations. The history surprises at times. Most of us know something about the religious image breaking in Europe; fewer, about attacks on political images; perhaps fewer still, about attacks on Buddhist art in China or on the mosques in Mali. Some groups--the Melanesians of New Ireland, for example--create art works specifically in order to destroy them; others--the Baga of Guinea, under the influence of Islam--have destroyed one set of ritual objects only to recreate them in other contexts. We return to more familiar ground with the Dadaists, whose rejection of past art led them to destroy it in the creation of something new.

The more philosophical essays, which certainly repay those who come to them from the perspective of theology and culture, investigate the nature of images, the human penchant to represent the world, the inherent falsity of images, and the resulting discomfort with the limitations of images. Though rooted in art, such questions cut across human experience, as the example of the epistemological struggle over visualization in science shows. This debate echoes in many ways the same struggle over representation in religion. Iconoclash makes the debate even more relevant by extending it from three-dimensional objects to photography, film, and even music. While "iconoclasm" primarily applies analogically in these areas, the underlying concern for the status of symbolic meaning remains constant.

The book's section headings provide a sense of the theoretical issues it addresses: What is iconoclash? Why do images trigger so much furor? Why are images so ambiguous? Why do gods object to images? The unbearable image. The unbearable sound. The unbearable movement. How can an image represent anything? Why is destruction necessary for construction? Are there limits to iconoclasm? Can the gods cohabitate? But there is no image anymore anyway! Can we go beyond the image wars? Has critique ended? What has happened to modern art?

All of these topics raise vitally important questions for us who live in an image culture and especially for us who have a concern for religious and theological investigation. We would do well to follow the contributors to Iconoclash in reflecting on the power of images, on the comfort they bring to us, and on their intimate role in religious practice. Even more, we would benefit from thinking more explicitly about a largely unconscious or implicit aspect of iconoclasm: the recognition that the form of expression (the image, for example) affects the content of that expression.

Having provided a wonderful stimulus for thought, Iconoclash, though it does not address this topic, invites one final reflection: How do we negotiate the transition from representation by images to representation in language?

PAUL A. SOUKUP, S.J.

Santa Clara University, Calif.