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NEW YORK (AP) A photography exhibit that includes a work
depicting Jesus as a naked woman is stirring debate at the same
museum where a dung-decorated painting of the Virgin Mary sparked a
heated six-month legal battle.
The work "Yo Mama's Last Supper" features the photographer,
Renee Cox, nude and surrounded by 12 apostles. It is part of
an exhibit of 94 contemporary black photographers opening Friday at
the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Cox, a Jamaican-born artist who was raised Catholic, said the
Last Supper image highlights legitimate criticisms of the church,
including its refusal to ordain women as priests.
"Get over it!" she said. "Why can't a woman be Christ? We are
the givers of life!"
Another artist's photo collage depicts a topless woman,
crucified.
"I think what they did is disgusting, it's outrageous," Mayor
Rudy Giuliani said, adding that anti-Catholicism "is accepted in
our city and in our society."
Giuliani said Thursday he is appointing a task force "that can
set decency standards for those institutions that are using your
money, the taxpayers' money," including the city-subsidized
museum.
In 1999, the museum's "Sensation" show featured an elephant
dung-embellished Virgin Mary. The mayor froze the museum's annual
$7.2 million city subsidy about a third of its annual budget
then sued in state court to evict the museum.
The museum filed a countersuit in federal court, where a judge
ruled that the city had violated the First Amendment and restored
the funding.
This time, Giuliani said he would go all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court, whose decisions he said are based on "showing
decency and respect for religion."
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