Saturday, March 31, 2007

Ert to Eat

Posted by olvlzl.
Can you believe that Matt Semler, the now former director of the Lab Gallery didn’t know exactly what would result from the aborted “My Sweet Lord” exhibit? That’s the one with the big chocolate Jesus on the cross - without loincloth - just to gild the lily. It was announced for New York City, the home base of America’s most reliable rent-a-reactionary, Bill Donohue. Certainly someone in Semler’s profession had noticed his performance art on at least one occasion, including his “Sensations” reaction. He's the Christo of "christianity". So, I’ve got very little sympathy for Semler's resignation even as I wearily roll my eyes and say “Yes, yes. Of course it is a matter of free speech”, to which a polite person wouldn’t add, no matter how juvenile the message was.

The work of “art” is apparently one of a number of rather silly sounding pieces by Cosimo Cavallario. His previous production includes large installations featuring 5 tons of pepper jack sprayed on a Wyoming house and a four poster bed made of ham, sounds more hors’ d’oeuvre than oeuvre. If not intended to be quite ephemeral this is certainly visual art that is more than begging for that most common of olfactory comparisons. Even observing the three day rule wouldn’t prevent that. Perhaps working in chocolate is an attempt to pass the test of time. I haven’t read anywhere but the edible aspect of the chocolate would invite the suspicion that it was an Easter season satire on Catholic communion. If that didn’t occur to the artiste, he’s just one dumb bunny. If you’re afraid that I’m having trouble taking this seriously, it’s much worse. I can’t take seriously anyone who pretends to take it seriously. They’re not even fooling themselves.

Of course the giant chocolate Jesus to be eaten was certain to call out Donohue and his latest eminence gris, Edward Cardinal Egan. Any but the most uninformed and dizzy figures on the fringes of the New York arts scene would have figured their fulminations and frothing into the performance concept. And here let me point out that as a voluntary part of that art scene, Donohue really is going to have to stop saying that these drearily predictable, pedestrian and boringly mild attempts at blasphemy are “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,” . After the six or seven hundredth time that gets as old as moldy mozzarella on the walls of a Manhattan hotel room. For a man who endorsed Mel Gibson’s truly offensive Jesus snuff movie, he’s working with no cred. Anyone who can tolerate the usual use of the crucifix as schlock, on full display in most venues of alleged piety is too jaded to see the speck in his brother’s eye.

You know what I'd really like to see someday? I’d like to see something that would really get the likes of the Catholic League in a real tizzy instead of one of these pay per view ones. I’ll bet the real Jesus would just have them fit to be tied.