A
painting by
Chris Ofili: "paper
collage, oil paint, glitter, polyester resin, map pins,
elephant dung on linen". It includes cut-outs of female asses from
porno mags; the excrement is an Ofili trademark. Its current notoriety stems from inclusion in a show of
controversial contemporary
British art in
Brooklyn. Ofili says
THVM is deliberately "
sexually charged", as were, e.g., some traditional
European, holy-coquettish, depictions of the Madonna. BTW, Ofili is
Catholic.
Or, nominally Catholic. Sure, as his opponents say, it's blasphemy, or blasphemous in intent. But keep in mind that many non-European cultures have depicted Mary as something other than caucasian or vaguely Hebraic, and have even depicted her in the local styles - some of which aren't far removed from Ofili's work. OK, so there's no elephant shit and booty cut-outs in those local styles. Were THVM not so I-meant-to-do-that ugly (another Ofili trait), it would fit well into the tradition.
I prefer his uncontroversial, totally-abstract works anyway.