The bigger story here is Christianity’s theological insanity, not some guy buying up billboard space. Anyone who thinks that Jesus Christ is returning to Earth to judge humanity and then throw all the haters into a lake of fire needs to have their head examined. The only real difference between them and Camping is that he says it’s happening tomorrow. (Photo: Urban Christian News/flickr)

Less than a month after the fist-pummeling of the “evil” and “very homosexual” Gauguin, the world’s latest anti-blasphemy crusade followed a protest outside the museum by 800 ultra-conservatives from the “re-Christianize France” lobby, supported by the far-right National Front party.

The duo ran off after smashing the $25,000 work. Another print of the work was attacked in 1997 by teenagers in Melbourne and another in 2007 by neo-Nazis in Sweden. This time, the show will go on. Director of the Lambert collection Eric Mezil said he’s leaving the destroyed work up so the public can “appreciate the barbarity committed by extremists.”

No comment yet from Andres Serrano, his art-buddy Stephen Colbert or trans-Jesus smasher Kathy Folden who was once made “livid” by Piss Christ.

For a dose of spiritual sanity, here’s very Catholic art critic Sister Wendy talking about Serrano’s “inspiring,” “admonitory work:”

The artist says that if you weren’t so hung up these racial “little things” and opt for a “humanist” faith, “the tensions and friction that cause wars and discrimination because of religion will not happen again in future lives.” Ah, harmony.

Just don’t show it to Kathy Folden.

Here’re some randy artworks from the “Pornucopia” excess and porn-themed art show at the Allegra LaViola Gallery. Randy! Yet, it was the relatively tame nude pizza-face and happily-nippled skipping girl in the window display that caused vocal protesting from the adjacent Orthodox community, three visits from the police in the past two weeks and Yeshiva schoolboys banging on the glass.

It’s a delicate situation. The culture clash between the long-established Jewish Orthodox community and the newer art gallery scene seems unavoidable.

Obviously, if nipples and crotch-patches alone are intolerable, “disgusting” displays of “I don’t know what this world is becoming!” then the water-color strap-on sex-doll face-riding inside won’t be your fare, regardless of your spiritual persuasion. Don’t go in. But this is New York City. Let’s celebrate diversity. That includes a little porn art.

The show runs through Friday. “Pornucopia,” Group Show, Feb 4 – Mar 18, Allegra LaViola Gallery, NYC

In response to the National Portrait Gallery censoring A Fire in My Belly, Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery rounds up NYC artist David Wojnarowicz’s other “transmutation of suffering into wisdom” and Catholic-themed works. There’s a heavy Alejandro Jodorowsky vibe to the show.

This exhibit is a key contextual supplement to the censorship fracas, especially in light of all the facts everyone got wrong in a huff – A Fire in My Belly was neither a video nor the artist’s reflection on his HIV status (he wasn’t diagnosed yet). “Spirituality,” David Wojnarowicz, Mar 3 – Apr 9, PPOW Gallery, NYC

Talking Points Memo reports that the show’s called “Ted Haggard: Scandalous”–the “scandalous” part probably being necessary, because who the hell remembers this guy anyhow, and maybe someone will watch the show if it’s got some “scandalous” elements to it? But Haggard’s supposedly got a new church and a new outlook on life that doesn’t involve doing meth or fucking dudes, so where does the scandal come from now? Perplexed.

“Despite his transgression, which Haggard says was a mistake and no proof of homosexuality, he is still married,” TPM reports. Haggard reportedly met with his methy manfriend for three years–that’s not a “mistake,” that’s a pattern. But whatever–looks like he’s straightened up, LOL. And he’s even made his new church gay-friendly, so let’s cut him some slack. (Image: CupofCloud/flickr)

Since 2000, Mavromati is being criminally investigated for “inciting religious animosity” under Russia’s strange Article 282, an article that helps censor artists, nearly jail curators and almost criminalizes “heresy.” Ten years ago, Mavromati mimicked a crucifiction for a film near a cultural institute. Zealots called him a Satanist. Cops went after him. Fleeing persecution and censorship, he exiled himself to Sofia, Bulgaria, where this action is taking place.

The aim of Ally/Foe is to “to bridge the gap between the accuser and the accused,” to “shed the superfluous specifics of the current criminal system” and create “the most democratic method of punishment or mercy.” You vote. His bare skin gets electroshocked. Or not. It’s all up to “your vote and conscience.” Next round is tomorrow at noon, EST.

Ally/Foe is still a prototype and the electrical charge can maim but not kill, for now. So settle down, you sick fucks.

It didn’t go over so well. After a ruckus erupted inside among the religious offended, the artist was escorted out and his object “essence of totalitarianism” along with him. As you know if you read ANIMAL’s Slav Beat, there’s lots of religious hoopla around freedom of speech in ex-Soviet states.

The art-activist’s most famous action was in 2009, when he and an anonymous partner protested Ukraine’s censorship-happy Morality Board by getting naked and simulating all kinds of sex in front of Ukraine’s Supreme Council building, like so (photos NSFW). He was sent to a historical castle of a prison for months, for hooliganism, despite protests from several notable cultural figures.