Bite Me, Sweet Jesus Christ

Cosimo Cavallaro. Works include film features, commercials, and sculpture. Born in Montreal, Canada, moved to New York 1995.Recently, Cavallaro took over 200 pounds of milk chocolate, created a six foot crucified Christ, naked, genitals prominently exposed and joked that viewers could take a  bite out of Jesus. Christians were not amused. The sculpture was scheduled to be exhibited at the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan which is housed in the Roger Smith hotel. Huge outcry, death threats, and a boycott of the hotel were planned. The exhibition was cancelled. It got Cavallaro noticed. Mission Accomplished.

In a twenty first century media glut, with the inevitable jams on the information highway, it pays to be airlifted by a small aircraft. Then your message can be written in the sky. It not only gets you airborne where everybody can see you, it also gives you a passage way where you can go where you want to, all the while smirking at the jam below. It’s a win win situation for an artist who wants to get noticed. Talk about a well orchestrated advertising campaign.

It’s old hat. Marcel Duchamp did it with ‘Fountain’ in 1917, where he portrayed a urinal and elevated ‘Found Objects’ into the orbit of art; it got people talking. Andy Warhol in 1977 with his “Oxidation Paintings” hired people to urinate on canvases. Andres Serrano in 1989 exhibited ‘Piss Christ’ in New York. A small plastic crucifix with the hanging Christ submerged in a beaker of Serrano’s urine mixed with cow’s blood. He wanted to enrage both Christians and Hindus. The crucifix is sacred to Christians, the cow, mother symbol; sacred animal to Hindus. He attained his goals. “The work of art” was a winner of the Southeastern Center for contemporary arts. It got first prize in the category, ‘Awards for Visual Arts’. Now, here is the kicker. This was sponsored in part by the National Endowment of Arts, a United States government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects.

In 1999, Chris Ofili from Manchester, England exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of art in New York. One of the paintings depicted the Virgin Mary as a black woman splattered with elephant dung. Sally Williams, public relations director of the museum said. “Ofili is adapting an African tradition of using excrement in spiritual objects.” What Williams was trying to say was that the artist was actually being reverential. Nobody believed her.

Back to the depiction of Jesus Christ naked. If these artists, so firmly believe that what they are doing is art and they are fearless and will defend their freedom to create with their lives, why has no one portrayed holy names in Islam naked or in compromising positions? Because they are scared that a Fatwa handed down by an enraged Ayothalla somewhere will be the end of their art and lives. They will have to run and hide. Suddenly portraying the truth becomes unimportant. They mess with Christianity because they know that they can get away with anything. Urinate and defecate on sacred objects. Huge outcry. Publicity. Protest marches. More publicity. Christians up in arms. Still more publicity. Print, television and internet. What more can an artist want? And if the Pope wants to get involved. Great. Make a naked marzipan sculpture of the Pontiff, smear it with cow dung and urinate on it. Call it art, sit back and wait for the publicity machine to go into gear. The best advertising agency in America cannot device a better campaign. It’s crude, obscene, ugly and offensive but it works.

And what is art? Besides the usual intellectual sound bites that pontificate and patronize, do you really know? Can you draw that fine line? Or does anything go?

Cavallaro apparently made art world news in 1999 with ‘Room 114’. He sprayed an entire room, including furniture with Swiss cheese. In another ‘art work’ he covered a home in Wyoming with five tons of Pepper Jack Cheese. His other works include ‘Fish in Shit’ goldfish swimming amid feces and urine in a commode. ‘Ham Bed.’ A black four poster bed with white sheets on which is piled 312 pounds of processed ham. Another work displays English alphabets made out of feces. ‘Alphabet in Shit’ is the cryptic title. Cavallaro then takes a photograph, the critics call it art and he sells the ‘creation’. It’s a crappy way to make a living but he’s doing it.

Some people call him an artist. If you are one of those people, please explain what this is all about. I have to get away from Cavallaro’s ‘art’. It’s beginning to smell kind of funky.

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