In This Exhibit, It’s ‘Hello, Dalai’

Religious portraiture is a delicate subject in our day. The heads of major religions more often appear to be bureaucrats than heroes, pen pushers rather than warrior saints. It would be hard, for example, to imagine a museum show of images inspired by Rowan Williams, the Welshman currently serving as Archbishop of Canterbury, who is head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Besides, to accurately depict the current schisms in the Anglican Church, any such exhibit would also require images of the Nigerian archbishop, Peter Akinola, whose violently anti-gay rhetoric has stirred up the kind of conflict described in a recent headline in “The Guardian”: “Bishops to Primate: Drop Dead.”