Last Supper as homoerotic art


Art for art's sake - or religion?


NSFW - Click photo for exhibit


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 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.

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

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.

Curator Martina Judt said the exhibition was meant to prompt…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.”

The Cardinal - in predictable newspeak - says this has nothing to do with censorship, it just requires “reverence for the sacred”.

Posted: Mon - April 7, 2008 at 10:13 AM