Here’s the situation: A 56-year-old woman was arrested on Wednesday because she tried to destroy a work of art at a public gallery in Colorado. “The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals” is a lithograph (print) by Enrique Chagoya, who is a professor at Stanford University.
The work includes many scenes which make light of Christianity, including one where Jesus is getting a blow job. The woman had smashed the glass display case and was busy ripping up the picture when she was arrested.
So, you have the two sides to the argument. One side says art should not be censored and if someone wants to see the standardly pious images of Jesus, they can go to a church and leave the art museum alone. What she did was vandalism and should be punished. The other side says this was offensive to a lot of people, shouldn’t be in a public museum paid for by tax dollars, and the woman is a hero.
Much as I hate to, I have to side with the right wingers on this one. First, there’s the separation of Church and State issue. While this artwork was pretty obviously not PROMOTING Christianity, it was participating in the great religious debate, and a state supported museum has no business going there. I’m not in favor of censorship, it’s just a zoning dispute in the global village. Public galleries can have portraits, landscapes, still lifes and abstracts. Anything that’s deliberately designed to piss off half the population can be in a
It' On The Left
private gallery.
In addition to being in favor of separation between church and state, I am also in favor of separation between art and state and between sports and state. It pissed me off no end when Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment was “off the table” and congress spent the next two months debating steroids in baseball. Congress should mind it’s own damned business and let the owners, players and fans decide whether or not they want steroids in baseball.
There’s one more reason, though, why I think this lady should walk free and the museum’s administrators get a stern talking to. It’s crap art. Any 6th grader can draw Jesus. He’s a stick figure with a very oval face and stringy hair. Any modern 6th grader can draw a man getting oral sex as well. You see examples in almost every men’s toilet stall.
So, it’s not so much art as it is graffiti in a frame, a vulgar comic with an outrageous price tag. It is to art what drawing a funny mustache and walking around giving the Nazi salute is to political debate.
Better luck next time, Professor Chagoya. This picture got the treatment it deserved.
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I agree. I also do think that all people should show respect for all other’s religions, beliefs, values and feelings. This picture, the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, etc. are intended to offend religious people, perhaps to mock their blind devotion, uneducated historical and scientific views, prejudice, and the resulting aggressive behaviors and wars. I think an open debate such as Christine Amanpour held last Sunday would be much more productive in promoting understanding, respect, and maybe someday, peace. When will people learn that ‘religion’ is in their brain, the emotional and behavior control centers.