It is ART

Is it because he is a chocolate Jesus and not a white chocolate Jesus that everyone is upset? Maybe the powers that be need to clarify with C Ray Nagin...

Regardless I think the Catholic Church and Christian groups should back off of this one. Religious groups seem happy with the sales of chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies – so why be upset when someone takes it to a new level that is actually very talented.

I am banking that the penis thing is having a problematic. I think Jesus had a penis, so I dont know what the big deal is; but please feel free to share you opinions…




ps I thought the calorie count was significant – may be that is what is NOT TASTEFUL to the Christian groups because it is rather fattening…

here is the article should you be inclined to read it:
Catholic rage cancels sweet Jesus art
By Daniel Trotta in New York
March 31, 2007

A MANHATTAN art gallery has cancelled its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked Jesus, after an outcry by Roman Catholics.
The sculpture My Sweet Lord by Cosimo Cavallaro was to have been exhibited for two hours each day next week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.

The display had been scheduled to open on Monday, days ahead of Good Friday when Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus. But protests including a call to boycott the affiliated Roger Smith Hotel forced the gallery to scrap the showing.

"Your response to the exhibit at the Lab Gallery is crystal clear and has brought to our attention the unintended reaction of you and other conscientious friends of ours to the exhibition of Cosimo Cavallaro," Roger Smith Hotel President James Knowles said to "Dear Friends."

"We have caused the cancellation of the exhibition and wish to affirm the dignity and responsibility of the hotel in all its affairs," he said.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights had called for a boycott of the hotel, writing to 500 religious and secular organisations.

"This is an assault on Christians during Holy Week," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the league, which describes itself as the largest US Catholic civil-rights group.

"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the prophet Mohammad naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan," she said before the cancellation.

The archbishop of New York called the sculpture "scandalous" and a "sickening display."

"This is something we will not forget," Cardinal Edward Egan said.

Matthew Semler, the artistic director of the gallery, said earlier that the hotel had no knowledge of what the gallery planned to show and was being unfairly targeted. Moreover, he said the work was not irreverent.

"It's intended as a meditation on the Holy Week," Semler said of the sculpture, which depicts Jesus as if on the cross. Easter Sunday, this year April 8, is celebrated as the day of Jesus' resurrection.

A photo of the piece on the artist's Web site (http://www.cosimocavallaro.com/) shows the work suspended in air. New York is familiar with clashes between art and religion.

In 1999, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani tried to withdraw a grant from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for a painting depicting the Virgin Mary as a black woman splattered with elephant dung adorned with cut-outs from pornographic magazines.

Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a different approach.

"If you want to give the guy some publicity, talk more about it, make a big fuss," Bloomberg told WABC radio. "If you want to really hurt him, don't pay attention."