Artists Are Losers ...... NSFW

A graphic rant against the Catholic League's war on art and artists, which pits the president of the Catholic League and mayor of NY against the sculptor Cavallaro, the CODE PINK girls, Sinead O'Connor, John & Yoko and other free spirits.

In Michelangelo's time another fiery Dominican held sway: Girolamo Savonarola insisted on strict cleanliness and purity, was excommunicated, and preached against vanities bred in a world of hypocrisy, domination and greed. In 1497, Savonarola organised a giant bonfire of all those things that proclaimed vanity - masks, gowns, gluttonous consumption, art that portrayed nudity - in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Even Botticelli threw what might have been some of his greatest works onto the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' as it came to be known. Michelangelo did not join this purging extravagance. But the fad was short-lived and Savonarola and two fellow monks were put on another bonfire in the same square the following year.

Michelangelo Memo Makes $576,000

The violent rantings of a lunatic bully over a chocolate Jesus:

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League: But you know what bothers me? It's not even the artist. I mean, we have a lot of these loser artists down in SoHo and around the country. What bothers me is that this guy Knowles, who is an artist in residence, the owner, the president and CEO of an establishmentarian site, the Roger Smith Hotel, 47th and Lexington, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, that is what bothers me, because now we have the establishment kicking in.


And to put this out during Holy Week, on street level, when kids can walk in off the street, these people are morally bankrupt. And my goal is to make them financially bankrupt.

Detail: Battle Between Carnival and Lent: Pieter Brueghel; 1559







Battle Between Carnival and Lent (for Bill Donohue); dgr; Easter 2007







Panel One:



Transsexual in Mardi Gras parade, CODE PINK dancing girl, photographer Renee Cox, CODE PINK woman in Muslim headscarf, playful Pope Paul II


Sinead O'Connor makes the scene, smoking a very politically uncorrect "fag" (cigarette).. You Go, Girl!! Mardi Gras transsexual shaping up.


Panel Two



Grumpy clown, sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro with "My Sweet Lord" nailed to the barrel he's riding, two nuns looking at it with amusement/repugnance at Jesus' junk, Prince at the Superbowl



Panel Two: Prince has got some company



newcomers to the Carnival: the poet Alan Ginsberg with his lover Peter Orlovsky from a photograph by Elsa Dorfman that was published in the Village Voice last year..



next to make the scene: John and Yoko from Two Virgins



John & Yoko; Two Virgins; 1968; from Canadian cover as the US judged it obscene.. so they did a back view.


Panel Three

Papparazi, figure with I Love New York sign, gaunt and weak Rudy Giuliani in wheeled chair

Four Cardinal Virtues make the scene

Four Cardinal Virtues from Victorian era print... also used as symbols by the Masons.... oh wierdness

Panel Four

Catholic League President Bill Donohue with Jack in the Box head holding sign "Artists Are Losers," the Michelangelo sculpture Risen Christ later defaced by the Church by affixing a gold loincloth, the Monkey Pope painted by Titian in the 1500's in another wheeled chair, a banner overhead that reads "Catholic League for Rudy 2008"

Ominous doings on the Lenten side:

Bush praying with Cardinal Egan of New York. Bill Donohue has lost his Jack in the Box head, and is more nearly his rabid self.

Cardinal Egan and Holy Child

The banner now reads "Catholic League for Decency" as it's pretty clear they haven't come out, and can't come out, supporting Giuliani.
Detail:

Just to prove I can paint:
Detail of the cardinal's left hand resting on the child's head.


My Easter Mural shapes up:





This is a painting in progress. Tune in for more changes as I post them here.


2009... panel four has changed again... bill donohue's head is now a warring ape

Painting is another way to rant (editorialize.) I'm really pissed off that Donohue would say "Artists are losers. They're morally bankrupt. I intend to bankrupt them financially."



Really, really pissed off, Bill.