Art, Religion, Holy Texts, Philosophy, Biography, Lit, Poetry, History, Language, Science, Food, Fashion Specialty
guerrilla.exegesis@gmail.com
current location: UK (london/brighton)
notes
Guerrilla Exegesis is a knowledge exchange, personal library, and research index, comprised of 2000+ books, catalogues, magazines, and printed matter. The project uses are.na boards and research timelines to circulate and annotate printed and digital materials organized around recurring themes and questions.
The collection spans many genres, but has a particular focus on Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Art History, Black Theology, Religious Folk Art, and Religious History, informed by a Black, queer, and trans perspective that approaches religion as a cultural and art historical formation. In addition to the library, I regularly visit religious and spiritually significant sites and artworks and record ephemera from around the world.
(Why so much on religion?)
While this library is by no means a religious project, a lot of the books in the library reflect my personal interest in religious storytelling in both visual and written form. Throughout much of history, religious institutions served as the primary custodians of cultural and historical narratives; first through scribes, and later through writers, painters, and sculptors, shaping collective understandings of identity, the nature of the world and its origins. I frequently return to the idea of religious institutions as “the grand storytellers” of both the East and West, and as such, there are many texts related to religious art, history and religious mythology.
Ultimately, Guerrilla Exegesis is both a personal research index and knowledge exchange, and this project in all its various forms represents my approach to understanding, creating, and sharing knowledge about art, history, religion, queerness, blackness, personal canons, family lore, “freedom” projects, “explorers,” things that become mythologized into biblical proportions, ordinary evil, passion narratives, blackness as an American export, the corny old hero’s journey, longevity as a form of dominance, devotional labor, objectivity as a virtue, “victory over self,” nostalgia for danger, funny stories lost in translation, and and and.
the term Guerrilla Exegesis
comes from the 1995 essay, Guerrilla Exegesis: "Struggle" as a Scholarly Vocation -A Post-Modern Proposal For Insurgent African American Biblical Interpretation, by Obery M. Hendricks Jr.
the image on the homepage is an interpretation of a 15th century French Missal
(Formerly known as the "Fouquet Missal")
The section is a scene from the “Temptation of Christ” where Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days and nights. Currently housed in the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, you can find the full work (image 48r) here: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/32465651
The section is a scene from the “Temptation of Christ” where Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days and nights. Currently housed in the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, you can find the full work (image 48r) here: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/32465651
the genre symbols
come from the work of the 19th century dispensational writer and artist Clarence Larkin, whose many works you can explore in the library.