Signs of the Beast

Barbarian art mocks religion Is religion the new pornography? DC Moore Gallery, pitching its group exhibition of “American (ir)religiosity” in the exhibition Beasts of Revelation, hopes so. 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. But where is the sacrilege? The trumpeted irreverence comes gilded as a testament to “Christianity’s insidious aquifer of metaphorical power.” (Insidious /adj/ 1. cunning, deceitful 2. deleterious.) Downwind of Andres Serrano, Chris Ofili, and […]