Guido Costa Projects begins the year 2010 by welcoming back the Reverend Ethan Acres seven years after his first exhibition in Turin.

Blessing of the Hippopotamus is a commentary, in the form of a sermon, on that famous (and enigmatic) poem by T. S. Eliot The Hippopotamus (1917). The tone of the poem, like that of many other compositions by the modern Eliot, is overtly controversial and political: the hippopotamus, “is merely flesh and blood”, weak and awkward, contrasting with the “True Church”, that “need never stir to gather its dividends”.

Many interpretations of this text exist, but it is easy to conjecture why the Reverend Acres elected it for his Turin blessing.

The Reverend Ethan Acres is a voice of the Evangelical Church, preacher, artist and polemicist. He belongs to the complex cultural, religious and political universe that is so much a part of many communities that make up the Southern States ‘Bible belt’ in the U.S. (the Reverend comes from a small rural Alabaman community, near Sheffield).

Proceeds from sales of Reverend Ethan Acres’ art work (painting, sculpture, video and performances) provide financial support for his church (Church of the Holy Fool); but his oeuvre also serves as a didactic tool and vehicle for spreading the religious word, closely linking it to ancient traditions of sacred art.

The cultural elements he draws upon are obviously modern and clearly coherent with his reality. They range from the use of mass culture - also subculture - in all its forms to sophisticated reflections upon art. There is a complex contextual filter at work here that appears paradoxical and outlandish to us as it lets through the likes of Hard Rock by Jesus Freak, the despised Westboro Baptist Church of the Reverend Phelps, and the Wedding Chapels along the Las Vegas Strip.

Members of Reverend Ethan Acres’ family have been Evangelist preachers for three generations. Their roots stretch back into the 1800s’ world of snake handlers. This background makes him almost completely unique in the contemporary sacred art scene, and a radical and innovative figure in the vast constellation of “outsider artists”, with the exception of the odd precursor. His sermon-performances are rare, intimate and unforgettable miracles.

As well as a blessing, the poem by T. S. Eliot is a clear spiritual and political manifesto that the Reverend has made his own, delivering it in the form of a prompt to make us reflect, and as a micro-political enigma.

Blessing of the Hippopotamus by Reverend Ethan Acres, in collaboration with Tom Johnson and Slep, is a small esoteric homage to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Alabama. It will be celebrated at 7.30 p.m. on 4 March 2010 in via Mazzini 24.

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Reverend Ethan Acres (Fort Payne, Alabama, 1970) first appeared on the U.S. art scene in 2001. In 2003, the huge installation-performance Imago Pietatis was witnessed at the Guido Costa Projects space in Turin. He has exhibited in museums and as part of public collections in the US and in Europe (Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Aldrich Art Museum, Ridgefield; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC). Recent performances include those at the Tate Modern in London; the Centre George Pompidou in Paris; the Museum of Art in Santa Monica and the Grand Central Art Center in Fullerton, California. He also took part in the XI biennial of Sacred Art in San Gabriele.