Friday, August 21, 2009

Davidians in brooklyn

Yesterday was the opening of the Victor Houteff religious-propaganda drawings at the CABINET magazine artspace.

Unfortunately I didn't had my camera. 11 drawings are on view, all from 1933 and explaining the whereabouts of Shepherd’s Rod Seventh-day Adventists. The drawings are in fact hand colored prints on banquets. It is very possible that he had someone else draw these for him.
They are quiet sensational. And reminded me a bit of old circus posters like these;


They all have wild animals,danger, globes & stars

This drawing is from the Davidians website (click to get a better view)

But then this is not to entertain you but to scare you a bit so you'll join their church.
It's a bit creepy when you know how this ended years later with Waco,Texas.
I was surprised to hear the church still exist , still in Texas. They even send more info to Cabinet m for the show.
This is their website (go to 'charts' if you want to see more of these weird circus drawings)

Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant to the United States, was running a hotel in the Midwest when, in 1918, he attended a tent meeting of a Seventh-day Adventist group. He joined the church, and in the late 1920s began teaching doctrines that eventually resulted in his expulsion from the Seventh-day Adventist church in Los Angeles, where he had relocated. Despite his ousting, Houteff continued to preach his message. He and his followers, now known as the “Shepherd’s Rod Seventh-day Adventists,” finally moved to Mount Carmel, Texas, on the outskirts of Waco, where the group changed its name to the “Davidian Seventh-day Adventists.” After Houteff’s death in 1955, numerous factions broke-off—the largest was led by Benjamin Roden, who named his congregation the “Branch Davidians.” In 1983, Vernon Wayne Howell, later to change his name to David Koresh, joined the Branch Davidians.