Charles Saatchi was the owner of the collection of contemporary art which was presented at the Royal Academy of Art and then it took place in New York and Berlin. The exhibition included many works of Young British Artists and first took place on 18 September – 28 December 1997.
The Holy Virgin Mary painting cached all attention. Bright, technically complex works by Chris Ofili include fragments from rock paintings in Zimbabwe, comics, hip-hop culture to the present varied experiences of contemporary black identity. In this artwork, he used paint, foil, glitter, collage, colored pushpins and elephant excrement and collaged pornographic images (Ofili).
The Holy Virgin Mary is impressive and interesting. It looks like a tapestry. Ofili tried to explain that the manure in his homeland is the most important vital resource. People are building houses out of it, fertilizing the fields, cooking. It could work if there were no photographs of female genitalia. The artist explains that porn pictures suggest putti just as the Virgin Mary’s symbology reflects fertility. The name of painting makes people think that it is an icon. However, it is just artwork and the artist’s view.
Of course, religion is a private matter, but the question is itchy. In New York City Mayor Giuliani tried to close it the exhibition. In 1999, he was offended for all Catholics and demanded to remove a picture from the exhibition, threatening otherwise to stop funding the Brooklyn Museum from the city budget. Some newspaper wrote about the artist's right for self-expression, and the court ordered the mayor to continue funding the museum.
I am sure that such art should exist. For example the artwork "No Woman No Cry" had a lot of good feedbacks and materials are the same, however, it is not connected with the religion(Ofili). For somebody, it is shocking and hard to understand. However, we should not provide the policy of the Degenerate art as the Nazi regime in Germany did (Hubbs). Nowadays in Russia banning art is not so much discussed, nevertheless it exists. “There are four completely taboo subjects in Russian art today,” says gallery owner Marat Guelman. “The government, the Orthodox Church, Chechnya, and Putin.” ('Banned Art').
Works Cited
'Banned Art'. RUSSIA 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Hubbs, Damon. '9 Artists The Nazis Labeled "Degenerate"'. TheRichest. N.p., 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Ofili, Chris. No Woman, No Cry. 1998. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Ofili, Chris. The Holy Virgin Mary. 1996. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
