Posted on 03/08/2008 11:05:06 AM PST by Pyro7480
DALLAS — Artwork depicting the Virgin Mary as a stripper stirred trouble while on display at a small Catholic university before the piece was apparently stolen.
The print was part of an exhibit last month at the University of Dallas that featured the work of students at Murray State University in Kentucky. Joanna Gianulis, a senior art major at Murray State, said she was trying to raise questions about perceptions of saints and sinners and didn't intend to be sacrilegious.
"How do we know that an exotic dancer is sinful?" she said. "What if she has the best intentions and strives only to help those in need?
"Many single mothers are in this position and that is another reason why I chose to reference the Virgin Mary, because she was another woman who was in a tough position and probably received much criticism because of it."
Gianulis said she has no digital image of the print. Others who have seen it say it includes a veiled young woman wearing pasties and a G-string with money stuck in it.
The display went up Feb. 8 and prompted complaints within a couple of days. University President Frank Lazarus was away from the campus in the Dallas suburb of Irving when it was displayed but went to see it when he returned.
Lazarus said he found the print objectionable but didn't remove it because of concerns about restricting academic freedom. Instead, he and other officials decided to put up signs warning that some items might be considered offensive.
"It was imprudent of (Lazarus) to leave it up," said Tom Lagarde, a member of the Class of '97 and secretary of the school's national alumni board. "Regardless of what the artist's message was ... the means she used were illicit, at least for Catholics."
Lazarus said he was considering further restrictions when the piece was discovered missing Feb. 14. Campus police are investigating the case as a theft.
Joshua Neu, a junior majoring in English and philosophy, was among those upset by the print.
"The university ought not display images that make profane that which the institution holds sacred," he said.
Jeanne Luthi, a senior art major at UD, said students need to see contemporary art, even if some of it is upsetting.
"People read (philosopher Friedrich) Nietzsche in the core curriculum, and that's fairly anti-Christian," she said. "It just feels like the visual arts are being held to a completely different standard."
Asked for her description of the piece, Gianulis wrote in an e-mail:
"The work is a black and white woodcut relief print depicting a scantily clad stripper wearing a veil and holding a rosary. Other details in the work are scrolls saying 'Sinner or Saint?' in Spanish and referencing the Virgin (of) Guadalupe, and also a snake, some white lilies, a pair of scales, and also a small image of a bar of soap opposite a bottle marked 'xxx.'"
The Virgin of Guadalupe is a revered image to many Catholics, particularly Hispanics who accept the legend of the 16th-century appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to a Mexican peasant. Dallas is a center of Virgin of Guadalupe devotion, and its downtown cathedral is named for her.
Things are worse than you imagine!
I've got some bad news for you sunshine, a drunk in need of a handjob is not exactly on par with a world needing a Savior.
thanks for the ping...this is “my” school!!
Perhaps it was stolen so it could be destroyed, which in this case might constitute an act of charity rather than of theft.
And the artist herself was known to be a virgin who was leading an exemplary Catholic life. Get ready for the crusade against the infidels...those few who would be willing to fight for the faith. Those in the vast majority for whom their faith is but a quaint affiliation to be ‘proper,’ take your seats among the spectators.
>> I know you frequently see pictures of Mary that have a rosary decorating the frame, but checking through my Scriptural references real quick (sola scriptura is the standard for this) I didn’t find anything that said Mary had a rosary. <<
“Sola scriptura is the standard for this?” So she meant to offend Catholics, not Protestants, and that makes it OK? And nothing can be true which happened after the bible was completed?
The rosary was given, according to Catholic faith, by the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Dominic. (The notion of counting repitions of the Lord’s Prayer to represent the psalms dated back to 4th century.) In many apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, she has carried the rosary, including at the Battle of Lepanto, at which she directed the commander of the Christian forces to pray with it in battle, which saved all of Western Civilization from a Muslim onslaught.
Actually, I heard that it has been burned.
Gone. Ashes.
:)
I was glad to hear of it.
Actually, I heard that it has been burned.
Gone. Ashes.
:)
I was glad to hear of it.
“Check out the Koran sometime. There’s a large chunk of it devoted to Mary.
Moslems can and do take offense at this sort of thing ~ for a variety of reasons ~ and some of them will kill you for being even mildly “edgy” when it comes to depictions of people named in the Koran.”
Ironic that while Moslems take can and do take offense when it comes to those people they honor in the Koran, say for example either Moses or even Mary, people just as honored if not more so by Jews and Christians, as sadly seen late last week in Isreal with the slaugther of young Jewish yeshiva students in Jerusalam in the end dishonors these same very honored people of the Holy Bible that both the Koran and Moslems honor.
What she said is obviously that within the context of her picture she "referenced" Mary ~ by putting in elements pertaining to religion.
I still think she's screwy with the veil. But never mind, her grasp of religious symbols is obviously not very good.
Sounds more than a bit tasteless.
Crass.
Offensive to sensibilities.
etc.
However, the President seems to have taken a wise stance.
Warn.
But leave the crassness to speak for itself.
Though there are likely to be hordes of self-flagilation characters thronging around in loud wails such that the offensive artwork will likely be quite obscured.
Are you saying that one could not take up castinets in a Flaminco as UNTO THE LORD?
I’m not sure I could insist authoritatively that Mary and Elizabeth did not do si do in exaltant joy
Still . . . all such WOULD be a far cry from what the artwork was tweaking at.
You guys should quickly move to get someone knowledgeable in Christianity over there to witness to this young lady and bring her into the fold. She's working with the material, and she's interested, but she has obviously not been taught.
It's time to teach, not criticize I believe.
AMEN.
Seems like a pretty clueless soul is at stake.
Talk about sick and perverted “artwork”! If something like that had been done to Mohammed, there would be riots in the streets.
Did you read the entire article? The "artist" that created this "art" was not a U.D. student. This was part of an exhibit from another university. But ... shame on U.D. for allowing it.
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