Sweet Jesus

So it appears more fine art has angered a group of Christians to demand that it not be shown at a New York art gallery starting next week. Cosimo Cavallaro's "My Sweet Lord" which depicts a crusified Jesus nude and made entirely out of chocolate was to be shown street-level at the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called for a boycott of the exhibiton and the accompanying Roger Smith Hotel. "This is an assault on Christians during Holy Week," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the league, which describes itself the largest U.S. 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.

While I personally may not find Cavallaro's work interesting; by protesting this piece, the organization drew more attention and importance than it needed to be - landing the gallery space and the artist in the national news. It also opens the whole dialog of the power that art has to challenge, engage and in some cases enrage its viewers. While the news states that the gallery is weighting its options to whether or not the piece will be shown, something tells me with all the media coverage the artwork will be displayed as scheduled on Monday as orginally planned.