Earlier this month, a group of Hispanics in Houston, Texas protested what they saw as a blasphemous, obscene and racist exhibit at the Redbud Gallery. The exhibit in question, “Sextablos: Works on Metal,” is a play on the Spanish word, retablo; retablos are Mexican paintings of saints on sheets of tin. “Sextablos” features many pornographic images, but by far the worst is the one by Michael Thompson that shows a naked woman performing fellatio on Christ nailed to the cross. A book of the display is also available from Bad Press Books. The exhibit extends to January.
Catholic League director of communications Patrick Scully called the owner of the Redbud Gallery, Gus Kopriva, to ask him about the exhibit. Kopriva agreed that it was offensive to him as a Catholic to show Christ receiving oral sex. Nonetheless, he said, he didn’t have any choice to show part of the exhibit. He then defended the piece by saying that “the idea is to shock the mainstream establishment—pure shock.” When asked if he would show an exhibit that ridiculed the Holocaust, he said, “Oh, yes, I would have to.” He then offered, “Would I accept an exhibit that espoused the KKK? No.”
Catholic League president William Donohue offered his remarks on this subject today:
“Everyone has a hot button and now we know what offends Gus Kopriva—he doesn’t want to offend African Americans. But Catholics and Jews, that’s okay.
“To believe that showing a naked woman performing oral sex on Jesus Christ would shock the mainstream establishment demonstrates how out of touch Kopriva is. Indeed, had he asked someone in the Clinton administration to arrange for a federal grant from the NEA, he surely would have gotten one. All he had to do was call an intern for some help.”
