Anything Goes - The Last Supper Revisited!

The Internet is truly a place where anything goes and the boundaries of freedom of speech and good taste are often pushed to the extreme and perhaps regularly crossed.

However, as I was reading a story about a sketch that depicts the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy, which I might add was part of an exhibition being hosted by a Catholic Church in Austria in celebration of one of Austria's finest painters, Alfred Hrdlicka.

Nah, I know nothing about art or about one of Austria's finest painters but I do have to say trying to find the painting in question has proved way more difficult than I thought it might have been but persistence pays and I have located the sketch (above) and I have found a video of it here...

Not to be deterred though my travels led me to another depiction of the Last Supper that has a very definite S & M theme happening and it is just so Village People. This is the second picture!

The point of this post is not to offend (although it probably will) and it is not to make any pronouncement on what freedom of speech or expression means. Hopefully, the post will highlight that something does not have to breach the boundaries of free speech to offend. I am certain that if Indonesian Catholics were offended by the depiction of Soeharto and his children in the Last Supper scene then these two pictures are truly going to test the limits.

Nevertheless, the point is this; if the Indonesian government is going to block and prohibit access to the film Fitna because it is likely to upset the apple cart of harmony and public order in Indonesia then surely pictures of this kind have that same potential and should be banned (sad that I am advocating for my own banning)...

I guess what I am asking you to do is this, and that is ask yourselves these questions?

1. Is art, even where it offends, a legitimate expression of free speech and freedom of expression?

2. Who should decide what I look at as a consenting adult, the government or me?

There are probably many more questions that I could pose here but I will let you, my readers (some of whom I might have offended -- my apologies for any offence but not for the post) throw questions back at me...You already know from my previous postings that I am into constructive debate on topics that matter.

The Last Supper

The inspiration for this particular post is several fold. I have written recently on Tempo's decision to publish a satirical rendition of Soeharto and his family in a pose resembling that of the "Last Supper" (not in the above collection) based on a painting by Da Vinci (the first of the pictures above). For this little indiscretion Tempo apologized.

The second inspiration that brought this back into my mind was a posting on Carl Parkes' blog, FriskoDude, which had re-posted some of the pictures above from another blog by Jeremy Barker, Popped Culture. I would recommend both blogs to you, my loyal readers. Both are excellent in my mind and well worth a read.

The final inspiration is that it seems like an opportune time with it being Easter and all!

The point of this post is that a sense of humour is a wonderful thing and the ability to laugh at ourselves is useful outlet for us to come to terms with the idea that not everything in life has to always be serious!

I am sure that the depictions are likely to offend some. But my original point in my posts before is that the original by Da Vinci is the artists interpretation of how he figured the Last Supper must have gone down.

There has been endless debate about the imagery and the meaning of the painting, but when it is all said and done it is a piece of art. The other renditions of the Last Supper making use of pop culture highlight that if nothing else Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper lends itself to myriad of interpretations.