NYC MAYOR RUDY GIULIANI HAS ANOTHER ART ATTACK

New York's most powerful art hater, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is at it again. According to the New York Times, "disgusting" and "outrageous" is how Giuliani describes a 15-foot photographic depiction of the Last Supper by distinguished black photographic artist Renee Cox. The work, entitled "Yo Mama's Last Supper," on view at the Brooklyn Museum as part of an exhibition of photographers by 94 black photographers, features the artist herself, in the nude, as the Christ figure.

We just came back from the Brooklyn, where we saw the exhibition, which is called "Committed to the Image." It's pretty good, incorporating the work of Anthony Barboza, Martin Dixon, and the great Gordon Parks; you should definitely check it out. You may remember that the Brooklyn Museum was the scene of Mayor Giuliani's last art attack. In 1999 he tried to close the Museum after it debuted its "Sensation" show, because black artist Chris Ofili had dared to use elephant dung as an artistic material in his wonderfully powerful "Holy Virgin Mary."

Like Ofili, Cox says she was raised Catholic and has issues with that, and it makes sense that those issues would be part of what her investigations as an artist are about, right? Art is supposed to look fearlessly at ourselves and the world and bring us forward into a greater understanding of our humanity, right? Well, don't go telling that to Mayor Giuliani. Apparently he thinks art should look pretty and just sit there. Artist Cox's reaction to the Mayor's attack, according to the Times, was, "Get over it. I don't produce work that necessarily looks good over somebody's couch."

Giuliani was raised a Catholic, too, though it's clear that he's in danger of never even getting close to his issues (which include mistaking of sanctimony for reverence, and prudery for decency). Hating shit that can get you to the next level is pretty bad. That's why we think Giuliani deserves our pity more than our anger.