Erotic Jesus sparks art debate

2008-04-07 14:44

Vienna - They knew it would be risky to exhibit a homoerotic version of Christ's Last Supper, but curators at the museum of Vienna's Roman Catholic Cathedral weren't ready for a barrage of angry messages and calls to be shut down.

The source of the dispute, which Austrian media has dubbed Vienna's version of the Muhammad caricature row, is a retrospective honouring Austria's cherished artist Alfred Hrdlicka - who turned 80 earlier this year.

The Cathedral Museum's director and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna, have both come under fire from some museum visitors and Catholic websites.

The Church hastily removed the main picture, "a homosexual orgy" of the Apostles as Hrdlicka describes it.

The museum's director defends both Hrdlicka's work and his decision to host the artist's controversial versions of biblical imagery in a museum tied to the Catholic Church.

"We think Hrdlicka is entitled to represent people in this carnal, drastic way," Bernhard Boehler said.

Provoke a debate

He said the museum never intended to offend people, but that art should be allowed to provoke a debate.

"I don't see any blasphemy here," he said, gesturing at a Crucifixion picture showing a soldier simultaneously beating Jesus and holding his genitals. "People can imagine what they want to."

Boehler says that picture drew particular criticism from some visitors, along with a sculpture of Jesus on the cross without a face or loincloth that some Christians found offensive.

But the most disputed work was Leonardo's Last Supper, restored by Pier Paolo Pasolini which showed cavorting Apostles sprawling over the dining table and masturbating each other.

Hrdlicka says he represented the men in this way because there are no women in the Da Vinci painting which inspired it.

The exhibition has attracted fierce criticism on religion blogs in Austria, Germany and even in the US, with bloggers denouncing it with terms such as "blasphemy" and "desecration."

Critics missed the point

The museum took down the Last Supper piece at Cardinal Schoenborn's request just over a week after the Religion, Flesh and Power exhibition opened, leaving a blank black wall at the entrance to the display.

"It is also an act of respect towards those believers who feel this portrayal offended and provoked them in their deepest religious sensitivity," the Cardinal's spokesperson said in a statement.

The diocese says the museum's decision to show Hrdlicka's work does not mean it identifies with everything it portrays. Hrdlicka agrees but points out that the Last Supper piece was not intended as a swipe at the Catholic Church.

Boehler says the angry e-mails he has received remind him of how some reacted to Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of The Christ. In his opinion, critics of the film's violence and physicality also missed the point.

- Reuters