Catholic World News News Feature

New York Museum In Hot Water Over Anti-Christian Art... Again February 15, 2001

NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 01 (CWNews.com) - A New York art museum supported by tax dollars which was at the center of a controversy over anti-Christian art in 1999 has angered Christians again with a portrait of the Last Supper with a naked woman as Christ.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art will open a new exhibit on Friday that includes "Yo Mama's Last Supper," which depicts Christ as a nude woman standing with her arms outstretched and 11 black men disciples sitting or standing on either side of her and one white man as Judas.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said on Thursday it was sending a letter of protest to the museum over the five-panel photo by New York photographer Renee Cox, whose work has been described by critics as overtly feminist. "The museum didn't have to choose this as representative of Renee Cox's work," Catholic League President Bill Donohue told Reuters new service.

A museum spokeswoman declined to comment on specific works contained in the exhibition, which also includes a photograph by Willie Middlebrook of a topless woman on the cross.

New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani revoked the museum's city funding in 1999 after it held an exhibition including a portrait entitled "Holy Virgin Mary" smeared with elephant dung and including cut-out photos of female genitalia. The city and the museum went to court over the funding dispute. Under a March 2000 settlement, the city was ordered to continue giving previously allocated money to the museum and an additional $5.8 million in capital funding.