The BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) gets several controversial make-overs in a recent art show of Soasig Chamaillard’s work. While Art Info has a great overview of the project, a slide show of many of the pieces and quotes from the resulting controversy I thought you’d like to see some of the pop culture inspired pieces.
Now, I have to ask: do you find these offensive?
(If anyone is curious, I am Catholic and spent many years in Catholic school and I don’t find them offensive. I think they are pretty cool.)
I don’t see why a Catholic wouldn’t find these offensive unless they were pretty lethargic and indifferent about their own religion and held little to no love for the person being mocked in these statues.
I found the artist’s defense of her work to be one of great insensitivity as well as ignorance about the subject she was portraying. She shrugged off the peoples’ concerns by saying “faith is not in statues, and perhaps they should remember that,”. I don’t think any of the offended people declared that their faith was in statues. I would LOVE for her to actually read about the Eastern and Western Churches struggles with the heresy of Iconoclasm in the earlier years of the Church. Perhaps then she might have some sensitivity about the issue and a less cavalier attitude about something she clearly has not bothered to try to research and understand.