Taking Up Serpents, Speaking in Tongues, Singing God's Praises
Jim Shores
American, born 1952

Details
Title
Taking Up Serpents, Speaking in Tongues, Singing God's Praises
Artist/Maker
Jim Shores (American, born 1952)
Date
2003
Medium
Mixed media
Dimensions
76 x 24 x 40 inches
Credit
Gift of Carl and Marian Mullis
Accession #
2005.281
Location
Currently not on view
Jim Shores is a sculptor from Rome, Georgia. In this work, he combined safety-match crates, industrial tubing, and cast-off metal objects to create a snake-handling preacher. The snakes’ sinuous beauty recalls the cunning serpent of Genesis, while their slick surfaces contrast with the rough, patinated wood and dull metal of the preacher and his pulpit. The practice of snake-handling emerged in rural Appalachian churches early in the twentieth century and was inspired by a passage from the New Testament describing how God protects believers from a wide array of deadly things, including the handling of venomous snakes.