the displaying of the idiot "Jesus in piss" and "Mary made of elephant dung " exhibitions were funded by TAX MONEY?
Piss Christ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1987, Serrano's
Piss Christ was exhibited at the
Stux Gallery in New York and was favorably received.
[10] The piece later caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989, with detractors, including
United States Senators Al D'Amato and
Jesse Helms, outraged that Serrano received $15,000 for the work, and $5,000 in 1986
[11] from the taxpayer-funded
National Endowment for the Arts. Serrano received death threats and hate mail, and he lost grants due to the controversy.
[12] Others alleged that the government funding of
Piss Christ violated
separation of church and state.
[13][14] The work was vandalized at the
National Gallery of Victoria,
Australia, and gallery officials reported receiving death threats in response to
Piss Christ.
[15] Supporters argued that the controversy over
Piss Christ is an issue of
artistic freedom and
freedom of speech.
[15]
Sister
Wendy Beckett, an art critic and
Catholic nun, stated in a television interview with
Bill Moyers that she regarded the work as not blasphemous but a statement on "what we have done to Christ": that is, the way contemporary
society has come to regard
Christ and the values he represents.
[16]
During a retrospective of Serrano's work at the
National Gallery of Victoria in 1997, the then
Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne,
George Pell, sought an injunction from the
Supreme Court of Victoria to restrain the National Gallery of Victoria from publicly displaying
Piss Christ, which was not granted. Some days later, one patron attempted to remove the work from the gallery wall, and two teenagers later attacked it with a hammer.[
citation needed] The director of the NGV cancelled the show, allegedly out of concern for a
Rembrandt exhibition that was also on display at the time.
[13]
Piss Christ was included in "Down by Law", a "show within a show" on identity politics and disobedience that formed part of the 2006
Whitney Biennial. The British
Channel 4 TV documentary
Damned in the USA explored the controversy surrounding
Piss Christ.
On April 17, 2011, a print of
Piss Christ was vandalized "beyond repair" by Christian protesters while on display during the
Je crois aux miracles (I believe in miracles) exhibition at the
Collection Lambert, a contemporary art museum in
Avignon, France.
[17][18] Serrano's photo
The Church was similarly vandalized in the attack.
Beginning September 27, 2012,
Piss Christ was on display at the Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in New York, at the Andres Serrano show "Body and Spirit."
[19] Religious groups and some lawmakers called for President
Barack Obama to denounce the artwork, comparing it to the anti-Islamic film
Innocence of Muslims that the White House had condemned earlier that month.
[20]
