Cathedrals of a Different Kind: Photographs by Jim Young

Cathedrals of a Different Kind

     "And one of the elders of the city said,

     Speak to us of Good and Evil.

      And he answered:

     Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

     For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

     Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

     You are good when you are one with yourself…”

                                    From The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

            Prostitution and spirituality, when juxtaposed, appear to be diametric opposites. Jim Young has brought them together for that very reason: to probe our consciousness for similarities and entice us to question our present assumptions.

            In this exhibition of interior views of a bordello and a cathedral, the viewer finds that the spaces which we might consider to be “off-limits” to our own experience (the bordello) are less threatening than we may imagine. In reverse, the spaces which we might consider to be safe from the world (the cathedral) are not exempt from their own forms of corruption created by the minds which guide their principles. And so, when following this line of thought, one goes full circle to arrive at the conclusion that the concept of opposites can be misleading; that there is often good in evil and evil in good.

            On a personal level, Young asks us to look with courageous honesty at our own self-deception as a form of prostitution. Through this deception we sometimes avoid the lonely moments when what we believe rests only with us and our personal understanding of God. Blindly following dictated dogmas can be comfortable; but eventually, at some point, we are left empty from avoiding our spiritual journey. Authentic conviction is hard-won through moments of doubt; but it is in this disillusionment that hope and joy emerge, proving once again the symbiotic relationship between opposing concepts.

            For that reason the ideas which you see juxtaposed in this exhibition complete one another in a way that each alone could not. People are not all “good” or all “evil,” and much of the chaos of the world may be attributed to such generalizations.

            In this though, photography and writing Jim Young asserts that the human concept of love dissolves these walls which we create. Love is all-encompassing, and in its highest form is without judgement and boundaries; it is our connection to the divine.

            Young has asked us to be “vulnerable to life” and in that openness to allow both joy and pain, belief and doubt, light and dark; that in the acceptance of both, the two may become one.

Katherine Duncan

Executive Director

Hot Springs Art Center

Hot Springs, Arkansas