The public won't see that "anatomically correct sculpture" of a fully naked chocolate Jesus with arms stretched wide as if on a cross. That's a shame. [scroll down for news story]

I am generally pretty laid back about such things - artists should be able to do whatever it is that artists want to do.

I may object, I may be horrified, but art and art and art should be as free as art can be. As such, let this "artist" do what he wants.

If art is free to express itself, however, so to the public is free to declare judgment. And so with this piece of "art" I can freely say that I think it is absurd... but also that in some ways it is actually the perfect piece of art for holy week.

Why? Because it reminds all of those who follow Jesus of how he was mocked and ridiculed, how he was scorned and beaten, how he was humiliated... and all because of his love for us. Those are good things for his followers to remember.

Jesus' story isn't nice, it isn't neat, it isn't comfortable. It is the opposite of all of those things.

In so many ways those of us who say we follow Jesus actually want a sort of "chocolate Jesus" of our own - one that is sweet, one that demands little from us.

One that we can mold into our forms - perhaps politically conservative, perhaps liberal, maybe happy with just a few of our dollars given to the poor every now and again, perhaps content with those who simply say they love him and then lead lives little different from anyone else.

It is easy for some religious leaders to decry a piece of art and say - as some have (apparently with a straight face) - it is "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

(I suppose that genocide in Darfur is merely an "affront" to Christian sensibilities?)

But instead of getting all amped up over this "art," Christians should be spending time facing the real and very challenging Jesus found in the Gospels and encouraging others to do the same. I know that is what I need to do. David Kuo @ HuffPo

"Religious Police" Ban 'Chocolate Jesus'

A Manhattan art gallery canceled on Friday its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked Jesus, after an outcry by Roman Catholics.

The sculpture "My Sweet Lord" by Cosimo Cavallaro was to have been exhibited for two hours each day next week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.

The display had been scheduled to open on Monday, days ahead of Good Friday when Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus. But protests including a call to boycott the affiliated Roger Smith Hotel forced the gallery to scrap the showing.

"Your response to the exhibit at the Lab Gallery is crystal clear and has brought to our attention the unintended reaction of you and other conscientious friends of ours to the exhibition of Cosimo Cavallaro," Roger Smith Hotel President James Knowles said in a statement addressed to "Dear Friends."

"We have caused the cancellation of the exhibition and wish to affirm the dignity and responsibility of the hotel in all its affairs," the statement said.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights had called for a boycott of the hotel, writing to 500 religious and secular organizations.

"This is an assault on Christians during Holy Week," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the league, which describes itself as the largest U.S. Catholic civil-rights group.

"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the prophet Mohammad naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan," she said before the cancellation.

The archbishop of New York called the sculpture "scandalous" and a "sickening display."

"This is something we will not forget," Cardinal Edward Egan said in a statement.

Matthew Semler, the artistic director of the gallery, said earlier that the hotel had no knowledge of what the gallery planned to show and was being unfairly targeted. Moreover, he said the work was not irreverent.

"It's intended as a meditation on the Holy Week," Semler said of the sculpture, which depicts Jesus as if on the cross. Easter Sunday, this year April 8, is celebrated as the day of Jesus' resurrection.

New York is familiar with clashes between art and religion.

In 1999, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani tried to withdraw a grant from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for a painting depicting the Virgin Mary as a black woman splattered with elephant dung adorned with cut-outs from pornographic magazines. Daniel Trotta @ Reuters

tags: radical  art  jesus  christ  culture  shock  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit