VIENNA (Reuters) - They knew it would be risky to exhibit a homoerotic version of Christ's Last Supper, but curators at 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 Mohammad caricature row, is a retrospective honoring Austria's cherished artist Alfred Hrdlicka, who turned 80 earlier this year.
But not everyone has been wishing Hrdlicka a Happy Birthday. And 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.
But the protest has continued, much to the surprise of the small Cathedral Museum which is nestled down a narrow street in Vienna's historic Gothic quarter.
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 in his small museum office, across the street from Vienna's imposing St. Stephan's Cathedral.
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. Pasolini was a controversial Italian filmmaker and writer who was murdered in the 1970s.
The exhibition has attracted fierce criticism on religion blogs in Austria, Germany and even in the United States, with bloggers denouncing it with terms such as "blasphemy" and "desecration."
"The exhibition should never have taken place. The Director should apologize to Catholics worldwide for this," an article on conservative Catholic website kreuz.net said.
In the United States, conservative columnist Rod Dreher wrote on his widely read religion blog "I wouldn't have guessed that, given his reputation, a man like (Cardinal) Schoenborn would have stood for this abomination for half a second."
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.
"This has nothing to do with censorship, rather corresponds with the understood "reverence for the sacred," the Cardinal's spokesman said in a statement.
"It is also an act of respect towards those believers who feel this portrayal offended and provoked them in their deepest religious sensitivity."
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.
"There was such a reaction to its physicality. For me it was quite surprising the museum wanted to show the piece in the first place," he told Reuters by telephone.
"If the Cathedral Museum is having problems now, it's not really my affair, it's for the Cathedral Museum to deal with." He said overall he was pleased with the display and praised the director for being "strong."
A communist and atheist, Hrdlicka has said the Bible is the most thrilling book he has ever read and that religious imagery forms a central core to his work.
Boehler says the angry emails 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.
"The Crucifixion was brutal and it would be a lie to say everything in our world is nice," he said, pointing out that Hrdlicka is an anti-war activist who has seen the effects of Nazism and violence first hand.
"We in Europe have been affected by this and it influences how we see (Hrdlicka's) work."
Boehler, like Hrdlicka, says the art debate can be compared to the Danish cartoon row, where an image of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb in his turban enraged some in the Muslim world who saw it as blasphemous.
The angry reaction to Hrdlicka's work has only been verbal and the museum says some Christians have been balanced and support the exhibition, despite disagreeing with the artist's approach.
Curator Martina Judt said the exhibition was meant to prompt this kind of balanced reaction. The museum wanted to show that controversial works inspired by religious imagery can be discussed without taboo.
"People have said the Catholic Church has become a lot more liberal," she said. "But in the end, the reactions show this perhaps isn't the case."
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
each man thinks of his own fleas as gazelles
question authority
"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."
very offensive and blasphemous I would protest if I was there. This is not on.
"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."
I don't really know either, but I don't think stuff like this is anything new, there probably is just so much attention for it now, since the cartoon crisis and 'private journalism', ie. blogging. I wasn't around in the 70s but from what I heard attacks on the church were quite frequent back then, especially by artists. After all, it was a much more powerful institution in those days, which sparked a lot of 'resistance' to it.
Not that this is an attack on the church as such. Even after reading the article I'm confused if he meant as an insult. The Danish cartoon were clearly a critique of Islam, I'm not sure if the same can be said about this exhibition and Christianity. It's more like an oversexed artist letting his imagination run wild .
Yeah, its an age old story. Nothing to get particularly miffed about.
If God is angry with them, he'll drop a cow on their heads if he chooses to do so.
If not then he will either get them in the afterlife, or failing that, they were ok in the first place.
Just best ignored.
Occupation: The term of control of a territory by foreign military forces: Iraq 2003-2005 Liberation:when something or someone is freed: Operation Telic 2003
"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."
Does the artist have sado-masochistic um... issues? Unless he or she is trying to make some sort of statement about what he or she sees as a sado-masochistic Catholic belief about the Crucifiction. In which case, he or she would still probably have sado-masochistic um... issues.
I'm not deliberatly trying to spin the direction signs around on the thread, but is it listed anywhere that people who survive to a ripe old age after doing something like this get a worse punishment than those who choke the next day on a waffle?
Occupation: The term of control of a territory by foreign military forces: Iraq 2003-2005 Liberation:when something or someone is freed: Operation Telic 2003
[Pickthal 23:56] We hasten unto them with good things? Nay, but they perceive not.
perhaps that is why there is a a solacement in reading the Quran.. when one wonders why won't God smite them now...
Allah SWT isn't unfair to the people..
So let them enjoy their time on earth like cattle, eating, drinking, fornicating out of wedlock, incestuously and in deviance.. mocking divine laws and every holy institution, and to those who choose to submit to the path of the righteous... it is just a matter of time insha'Allah and they'll have all eternity to contemplate if all the merriments were worth it!..
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I would protest if I was there. This is not on.
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