Religion, the New Pornography

Writing for cityArts , Maureen Mullarkey reviews a new exhibition at the DC Moore Gallery, American (ir)religiosity :

 Censorship battles over sexually explicit imagery have been won. That old X-rated thrill is gone. Nowadays, organs and orifices are as transgressive as your parish bulletin. Only demon blasphemy has enough life left to pinch-hit for beaver shots and bull whips—or so the gallery wants to think.

On one level, Beasts of Revelation is a standard publicity caper, the kind that banks on the Catholic League to rise to the bait. Nothing boosts box office like a picket line of retired Knights of Columbus at the gallery door. Moreover, this is an election year, as civic minds at DC Moore remind us. The gallery is primed for Nov. 6 with latter-day riffs on Christian iconography, stand-ins for the social conservatism identified with a Republican candidacy. To underscore the point, two LDS-raised artists are showcased for their upbringing, not talent.

Read more here

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Ethics of Rhetoric in Times of War

R. R. Reno

What we say matters. And the way we say it matters. This is especially true in times…

How the State Failed Noelia Castillo

Itxu Díaz

On March 26, Noelia Castillo, a twenty-five-year-old Spanish woman, was killed by her doctors at her own…

The Mind’s Profane and Sacred Loves

Algis Valiunas

The teachers you have make all the difference in your life. That they happened to come into…