Yo Mama's Last Supper
Yo Mama's Last Supper is a work of art, made in 1999 by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black woman (the artist's self-portrait)[1] posed in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. Cox is pictured naked and standing, with her arms reaching upwards, as Jesus.[2]
In 2001, the piece was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as part of an exhibition called Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was offended by the work and called for the creation of a panel to create decency standards for all art shown at publicly funded museums in the city.[3][4] The work has also been included in other exhibitions about artistic depictions of The Last Supper, in locations such as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut; a church in Venice, Italy;[3] and a gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia.[5]
References
- ↑ Tinti, Mary. "Cox, Renee". www.oxfordartonline.com. Oxford Art Online. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
- ↑ Arthur Coleman Danto, "Renee Cox: Yo Mama's Last Supper", in Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life (Columbia University Press, 2003), ISBN 978-0-231-14115-4, pp. 101-108. Excerpts available at Google Books.
- 1 2 Elizabeth Bumiller, "Affronted by Nude 'Last Supper,' Giuliani Calls for Decency Panel", The New York Times, February 16, 2001.
- ↑ Monte Williams, "'Yo Mama' Artist Takes On Catholic Critic", The New York Times, February 21, 2001.
- ↑ Carla Bianpoen, "Revisiting 'The Last Supper'", The Jakarta Post, April 11, 2009.