Renee Cox, Yo Mama's Last Supper
Mayor Giuliani is again fuming about indecent art in New York museums, this time the five-panel photograph Yo Mama's Last Supper by Renee Cox, a pastiche of Leonardo da Vinci's famous Last Supper with a naked Cox playing the role of Jesus. Giuliani called the work "disgusting" and "outrageous," which undoubtedly increased its market value tenfold. Giulani also declared his intent to set up a committee to enforce "decency standards" at taxpayer-funded museums, which would permit only works "showing decency and respect for religion, for ethnicity, for race." This game is just getting too easy. Back in the day, you had to show fisting or use shit and piss as media to push the cultural warriors' buttons; now it's enough just to have Jesus show his boobies.
New York Daily News | Nerve (Feb 2001)
At Nerve, Susan Dominus finds the controversy baffling. "[Cox's] stance conveys the gravitas and sad dignity typical of crucifixion images, her arms nearly outstretched at her sides; at the same time, one senses in her bearing pride, pride at the insertion of herself - a black woman - in the canon of a typically white, male tradition of art history. The look on her face is, to some extent, ambiguous, and could be read as a confirmation of either one of those somewhat conflicting messages. But there's one thing that's not ambiguous: There is nothing sexual about it." This page also includes Nerve's profile of Cox from 1999 by Dwayne Rodgers, along with nine Cox photographs.
Nerve (Feb 2001)
Karen Croft interviews Renee Cox, the photographer whose work sparked another snitfit from Rudy Giuliani last week. While some have accused Cox of exploiting the controversy to further her career, she actually left town for the weekend to go skiing. The offending piece, Yo Mama's Last Supper, is part of a larger series that Cox calls "Flipping the Script," which recasts iconic images of Atlas, Adam and Eve, the Pietà and Michelangelo's David using black models. She argues convincingly that these nude photographs are no more "sexual" than the Renaissance nudes they evoke, though she promises that her "next body of work is sexual. It deals with female fantasy and desire and how that ties into family." An online gallery of Cox's photos accompanies the interview.
Salon (Feb 2001)
The New York Post milks the Giuliani vs Brooklyn Museum fiasco, by asking the Rev. Al Sharpton what he thinks: "If Jesus was here today, he would not be worried about art pieces at the Brooklyn Museum. He'd be worried about children going to school and not learning . . . and the homeless that can't find shelter."
New York Post (Feb 2001)
Joel Stein satirizes Rudy Giuliani's latest art world jihad by volunteering for the mayor's proposed decency commission to help weed out offensive art at New York museums. "My mind was teeming with suggestions I could offer the committee. My first idea was that we should call it the League of Decency and get cool names, spandex outfits and a hall with a giant videophone wall. My second idea was that we get paid lots of money and watch porn all day and complain about how indecent it is."
Time
Camille Paglia finds Renee Cox's work unexceptional, not "strong or original enough to sustain a major culture war." Paglia sides with those outraged by the piece, arguing that "black artists are being cynically used by white collectors, curators and museum administrators as a p.c. cover to attack traditional religious values."
Salon (Feb 2001)
Harvey Blume criticizes Camille Paglia for her responses to the Brooklyn Museum Art controversies of 1999 and 2001, particularly her 1999 Salon article asking "Why are a Jewish collector and a Jewish museum director promoting anti-Catholic art?" Blume defends Renee Cox's work from Paglia's dismissive putdown, and spends several paragraphs dissecting the ways Renee Cox's Yo Mama's Last Supper reworks the iconography of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. Blume notes that Paglia passionately defended Robert Mapplethorpe's work from the cultural warriors ten years ago, and laments her subsequent decline as both art critic and cultural commentator.
American Prospect (Apr 2001)
Art News profiles Renee Cox, the photographer whose work led Mayor Giuliani to propose a decency panel to censor art in taxpayer-funded museums. "One of the quickest routes to an instant 15 minutes of fame, short of being banished from Survivor, is to be branded offensive by a nationally known politician."
Art News (Apr 2001)
This page at SUNY-Albany has a reproduction of Renee Cox's "Yo Mama's Last Supper" and a short article by Devohn Phillips about the controversy.
