Artist Cosimo Cavallaro sculpted a 6 foot naked statue of Jesus and was due to display it at a gallery on E 47th Street in Manhattan starting Monday during Holy Week. This seems to have pissed of allot of religious
radicals.
"It's an all out war on Christianity" fumed Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "They wouldn't show a depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.with genitals exposed on Martin Luther King Day and they wouldn't show Muhammed depicted this way during Ramadan. It's always Christians, and the timing is deliberate."
Ok, to me the outcry to ban this and call it tacky or an attack on Christianity is censorship. I mean, he's an artist. This is his conception. In his mind, Jesus was crucified naked. Who is to say he wasn't? I mean, you're being crucified in a time that barely wore clothes anyway save for robes, as a criminal and an enemy of the state. He was an outlaw in most unsaid terms. So should we expect him to be treated with dignity because he wasn't. I mean, he was stabbed in the side, spat on, stoned on top of the nails in his hands and feet and crown of thorns.
But then again, this is all from a book of hear-say, isn't it?
And so what if he was depicted nude? Are they offended that kids might see it? I mean no one has said that this Jesus is sporting a Clark bar for a pecker and usually, if a person is in a lot of pain and hemorrhaging from open wounds, I doubt they would be aroused and erect. So really... How much of this is offensive? The Thinker is nude...does anyone ever care about that? There are loads of nude male and female sculptures, why because it's Jesus, are these people so appalled? Jesus had a penis. Deal with it.
I am an artist. We are taught in art school that the nude is one of the greatest creations and a beauty to behold in prime condition and nothing to be ashamed of when you are learning to draw or replicate the human form. So what's the hype? It's Easter and it's chocolate. Rather than take away from Easter with bunnies, they put their Jesus in your peanut butter. Or you could say you got your peanut butter on their Jesus.
Either way, it's a senseless posturing. Hell, it doesn't even look like Jesus.Grow up people. Let art be art. Art is freedom of expression and creativity. This reminds me of the elephant shit incident. Ok that was disgusting, but this is far less offensive.
Posted by Darkstar at March 31, 2007 10:56 PM | TrackBack