Sacred Heart

I don’t know whether to love or hate some of the street art in my RiNO neighborhood. The art next to Sacred Heart is a good example of my ambivalence. On the one hand it is a clever use of the twin-tee warehouse wall construction in creating an image that changes as you approach it. On the other hand, it is an image that has its roots in juvenile anime, perhaps with meaning only for the initiated adolescent. That it is juxtaposed with the landmark Sacred Heart catholic church is another conundrum. Is it simply a coincidence – a chance encounter between the whim of an immature artist and an object of deep religious meaning? Is it an effort to capture the innocence of children linked to the innocence of faith? Or is it the reverse, a sly critique of religious faith as a naive wishfulness? My money is on the first instance. In any case, I find it disrespectful both to the church as a sacred place and as an architectural landmark, and wish that whoever funded the project had some sense of context and appropriateness.