Editor feels art is sacri-licious

By Mark Costello
Collegian Editor
April 4, 2007

Easter approaches and with it, the intrinsic commercialization of a holiday once considered sacred by some. My personal beliefs in the religion of the holiday aside, one can hardly argue against the secularization the day has undergone in recent history. Sunday morning brunches, chocolate and other candies, gifts (in some households) and the Easter Bunny have expropriated the religious significance of the holiday, replacing it with a cold materialism that is the stuff of Hallmark and Cadbury combined. Western society, in its push towards secularism, still carries with it the baggage of its heavily Christian past. I adore Christmas and Easter, don’t get me wrong, but asserting that today they still hold hyper-religious significance in society at large is a bit misguided, at best.

And yet, people are still willing to subjugate freedom and integrity to faith. The latest holier-than-thou repulsion has reared its condescending head in New York City’s Robert Smith Hotel, where food sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro was set to display his most recent work, “My Sweet Lord.” The work is 200 pounds of milk chocolate, sculpted into the likeness of Christ crucified (with the cross conspicuously absent), sans loincloth, and was set to be displayed from Monday, April 2, to Easter Sunday. Patrons were to be invited to consume the chocolate figure at some point during its display. One might argue the taste of displaying and eating a chocolate, anatomically correct Jesus during Holy Week, but one cannot argue Cavallaro’s right to have his work displayed.

However, that’s precisely what people have been doing since the unveiling was announced. Bishop Egan of New York described the piece as “a sickening display.” Bill Donohue, of the Catholic League, called it “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever,” in a March 30 article by BBC News. Criticism coming from the Catholic right, along with a slew of death threats to members of the hotel and art gallery’s staff, has ended in the display’s cancellation. Freedom of expression, it seems, has no place in New York.

Matt Semler, the creative director of the Lab Gallery, resigned after the display was canceled. He has described the conservative response as “a Catholic fatwa,” a move which irked Donohue and led to him counter-criticizing Semler, claiming “the guy [Semler] is out of his mind.” It’s endearing, in a way, to see someone with such fascist tendencies show a sensitive side—sticks and stones, Mr. Donohue, may break your bones, but the freedom to impose your faith upon the freedoms of others will always protect you.

The Catholic League, which Donohue heads, serves as a watchdog against Catholic defamation in American media and politics. This whole situation reminds me of Juvenal, the first and second century Roman satirist, who wrote, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Translated, it reads: “Who will watch the watchers?” Donohue and the Catholic League, watchers who serve a definite purpose in protecting the civil rights of Catholics in America, are not without the need to be policed when their efforts began encroaching upon the civil rights of others. We must watch the watchers; they’ve done something wrong.

Taste aside (and no pun intended), the chocolate Jesus debacle was blown out of proportion by people with senses of self-righteousness that ought to offend anyone’s sensibilities, Catholic or not. The freedom to express is the freedom to offend; art is supposed to be edgy, to challenge the norms of society. I’ll admit, art is a liquid, hard-to-define term, but I at least know that censorship has no place within its hallowed halls. The irony of a chocolate Jesus being displayed and consumed during a heavily commercialized holiday season is a blunt statement on said commercialization; good or bad art, tasteful, tasteless or tasty, we as a society have lost something by denying Cavallaro his artistic freedom.

The Catholic right are Catholics wrong this Easter season—but don’t let them be a pain in your Mass. Have a good Easter, everyone, and make sure your chocolate figurines are orthodox, or the watchers will need more watching.

costellom4@lasalle.edu