- Wednesday, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani threatened to cut off all city funding to the Brooklyn Museum of Art unless it cancels next week's opening of SENSATION, a project that Bowie has been involved with and supports.
Damien Hirsts and Chris Ofili, two of Bowie's favorite artists are both at the center of the controversy. If you remember back to Bowie's journal from October 29th, 1998, Bowie predicted that Chris Ofili would win the prestigious Turner Prize, which Ofili did indeed win.
Ofili is a Roman Catholic whose portrait of the Virgin Mary was at the heart of the Mayors complaints. The Mayor, who actually had never seen the exhibit, only the show's catalogue, declared SENSATION as "sick stuff."
"You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion," he said. "And therefore we will do everything that we can to remove funding for the Brooklyn Museum until the director comes to his senses and realizes that if you are a government-subsidized enterprise, then you can't do things that desecrate the most personal and deeply held views of people in society. I mean, this is an outrageous thing to do."
Here, Ofili defends his work:
"As an altar boy, I was confused by the idea of a holy Virgin Mary giving birth to a young boy," he said. "Now when I go to the National Gallery and see paintings of the Virgin Mary, I see how sexually charged they are. Mine is simply a hip-hop version."
The city gives the museum nearly $7 million a year in operating expenses -- nearly one-third of its $23 million budget.
Keep an eye on BowieNet for further SENSATION developments.
Read the entire article from the New York Times.
