Terence Koh’s Jesus Erection Offends
Everyone’s a critic! Parents and the pious are incensed over artist Terence Koh’s Gone, Yet Still at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. From UK’s Daily Mail:
A gallery has offended the church by exhibiting a statue of Jesus with an erection.
…
Gone, Yet Still, features 74 plaster models ranging from Mickey Mouse to ET, with the 1ft high depiction of Christ with an erection a central figure in the artwork.Outraged visitors and church leaders have criticised the artist and Baltic bosses for disrespecting the Christian faith.
Dad-of-two John Monaghan, 33, of Heaton, Newcastle, said: “I feel this sculpture is overstepping the mark with regards to respect.”
Doesn’t that depend on the size of Jesus’ erection?
Another so-called “artist” just looking to stir the pot for his five minutes of fame. What, exactly, is the point of Jesus with an erection other than to get people fired up so queer activists can once again scream that they are being persecuted.
Possibly, Bill, and I tend to agree that when someone is seemingly intent on provoking Outrage we should be just a tad suspicious of the “artistic purity” of their motives. That said, and without having seen the Work in question, it’s always possible that there is a legitimate purpose here: Presumably jesus was at least partially a human male (I haven’t brushed up on all my mainstream and fundy theological finepoints recently). As such, it can be assumed that he pissed and shat and farted and conceivably enjoyed the occasional erection as well–all being part of the human experience that god apparently found it necessary to undergo, including death (but again, my theological ignorance is showing). So the artist MAY have been trying to remind viewers of jesus’s humanity? I dunno, but it seems possible. Or maybe he was just trying to cause a stir. At least he didn’t sculpt it out of poo.
What is the point … hmm it may make a point about jesus being HUMAN … if he really was HUMAN then Jesus had sexuality and had at least one raging boner every day of his life. Remember he was crucified at an early age.
Just like this artist is being crucified for using art to communicate.
The people complaining miss the entire lesson of how people CRUCIFY each other daily.
Stirring the pot is one of the MAIN uses of art in a society …. DUH !
Bill, few people scream more about persecution in the public sphere than religious fundamentalists.
Speaking of shit and piss — you know people as Jesus took his last breath that little loin cloth ended up full of both.
Murder by Capital Punishment is messy and against the first COMMANDMENT – (Mike Huckabee and his wacky fake Christians that only respect SOME lives dont like that commandment so they support breaking it and still act all pious. HA!)
ART DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE AN APPROVED PURPOSE – except in a Fascist Society.
The idea of so-called “blasphemous” art like this always turns me on a little.
Christ was painted nude for centuries, before the church condemend this as sinful and artists began censoring themselves.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2L85W7IMJR07
I can see a whole new cult forming: “Taste of my prick, for this is my spunk” Gotta love that Jesus jizz!
Has anyone bothered to look for photos of this work? If you do you’ll see that it’s a roomful of objects, not merely one provocative piece:
http://www.secession.at/art/2005_koh_e.html
The work has been on display elsewhere without causing trouble. The story derives from The Daily Mail, a notorious shit-stirring UK tabloid that never has anything good to say about gay people or their lives. I wish sites like Queerty would stop repeating their garbage, it’s inflated outrage.
And there are plenty of examples of Jesus’s penis in the art world, Michelangelo produced a couple, one of which (a drawing) is owned by the UK’s Queen Elizabeth.
Jesus was human.
Erections are human.
The end.
Sexuality is not “bad”. Get over it Bill.
I guess Jesus never got an erection. It must be a sign of piousness–impotence… Of course, that must mean priests never get erections, either. Just ask the altar boys they’ve molested. Gotta love the Catholics. Still thinking sex is “dirty”, nudity is disgusting, gay is an abomination… while they watch porn, go to strip joints, have sex in public bathrooms… Ah, hypocrisy, thy name is Catholicism…
The tumescent Christ was a popular figure in Medieval art. It repreesented his earthly power. A prominent art critic wrote a book about it.
terence koh is your friend!
The Catholic Church defines hypocrisy!
The aren’t worthy of respect.
Talk to us when you finally apoligize for your part in the holocaust!
i think the artist koh is revealing a truth and should be revered
When I Walk The Path of Freedom
When We Hold Hands to Find The Truth
Joy to the Messiah! Joy to the Messiah!
The Gay Artist Journeys towards
The Sky! JOY!
It’s only offensive if Jesus isn’t hung. He is called the All Mighty after all.
do you think koh used his own dick for reference onto GOD’s dick?
Halluleah!
Er … not that your point isn’t valid, rjp3, but “Thou shalt not kill” (or “You shall not murder”, depending on which translation you go by) is not the first commandment — it’s either the fifth or the sixth, again depending on which branch of Judeo-Christianity you follow.
Still, according to the Christian Bible, Christ was “a man like us in all things but sin” — and nowhere in the Bible that I know of are erections defined as sinful in and of themselves.
let’s face it jewish men are hot
Decay
However, Jesus will cum again!
Love Always
–Jules
i think the artist is cute : )
Once again Christians are caught using the double standard. They get upset when Jesus is depicted in a way they feel is digraceful, yet when the prophet mohammed is disgraced in political cartoons to the shagrin of muslim faithful, Christians don’t seem to empathize. I hope Mr. Koh understands the irony of his work, it raises valid concerns for religious / cultural debate.
Marc, totally agree.
(Well, in this case the Muslims may be offended as well, since the Christ is on of the prophets, but no voice was rised insofar, was there?)
And this indeed is very controversial
@Rick Soloman:
i find that extreamly offensive