The Art of Advent: Day Two
By Calla Mitchell
Ofili said, “When I go to the National gallery and see paintings of the Virgin Mary, I see how sexually charged they are. Mine is simply a hip hop version.” It is the 2nd day of December and my ‘Festive Theme’ for you to confab over your morning coffee explores the identity of a figure whose image most predominantly circulates the religious Christmassy context of this month.
Chris Ofili,The Holy Virgin Mary, 1996. MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Chris Ofili’s ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ rallies with her identity; he awards the Virgin with a fresh perspective, “his own representation”, or for Scott LoBaido, a “Catholic bashing”, and for Mayor Giuliani, a “horrible and disgusting” image. Displayed at the 1999 ‘Sensation’ exhibition in Brooklyn Museum of Art, the painting was desecrated two months later by an offended visitor and their white paint. (Pretty apt for a ‘Young British Artist’ artist whose intention is primarily to challenge and shock!). Ofili’s polemic mixed media, 8-foot-tall painting examines the Western assumed whiteness of The Virgin Mary and confronts her possibility of black identity. The surface appears festively furnished with its yellow-gold background, allusive to gilded Renaissance altarpieces, and decorative features which refuse to signify until up close… However, take a step closer and that cheery aesthetic is replaced by porn cut-outs and “shit”. Brace for controversy, and Ofili’s radical imagery visualises the over-sexualised and generative function of Mary’s identity. Again, surpass the controversy, and “shit” manifests earthly motherhood, as Anne Roiphe signifies, “this is not discretion if one views the dung as part of nature”.
His trip to Zimbabwe in 1992 was the stimulus for introducing elephant dung, and this “connection with Africa” established his scrutiny of Mary’s western representation and explores his own cultural connection to religion. The dung is employed for the painting’s supports labelled ‘Virgin’ and ‘Mary’ on the other, lending a sculptural quality, and for her singular exposed breast. Used for the ‘support’ and ‘breast’, Ofili may suggest Mary’s sexualised identity is what ‘supports’ her religious image. Ultimately, the buzz visuals of ‘black Madonna’, ‘elephant dung’, and ‘porn cut-outs’ are controversial, and aggressively incited an “American rage”. However, the positives or negatives of Ofili’s controversy are for you and your coffee to deliberate.
Bibliography:
Dinsdale, Emily. “That time this ‘hip hop Virgin Mary’ really pissed off the art world”. Dazed. April, 27, 2018. https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39894/1/that-time-this-chris-ofili-the-holy-virgin-mary-hip-hop-pissed-off-the-art-world.
Roiphe, Anne. “Even in Elephant Dung There Is Beauty”. The Observer. November, 10, 1999. https://observer.com/1999/10/even-in-elephant-dung-there-is-beauty/.
Young, Dr. Allison. “Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary”. Smarthistory. August, 9, 2015. https://smarthistory.org/chris-ofili-the-holy-virgin-mary/.