Your tax dollars at work
TheRock
Brazen anti-Catholic bigotry near San Francisco; a.k.a. Sodom-By-The-Sea.
Catholics Slam Napa Art Exhibit
Museum: A group says figures of the pope and nuns defecating are offensive.
Copia food center defends the works.
SAN FRANCISCO -- A national Roman Catholic group is protesting an exhibit at
Copia, the Napa Valley's heralded new food, wine and arts museum, that
includes figurines of the pope and several nuns defecating.
Activists say the work by Spanish artist Antoni Miralda has no place in a
museum funded in part by tax dollars, including money from Catholics. The
exhibit, titled "Active Ingredients," also displays miniature figures of
Santa Claus and Fidel Castro in similar poses.
"Catholics in the state of California are paying to have their religion
depicted in a way that's offensive," said Patrick Scully, a spokesman for
the Catholic League of Religious and Civil Rights. "This exhibit is
insulting. It's gratuitous. It's unnecessary." Scully said that scores of
the New York-based group's 350,000 members nationwide who had seen or read
about the exhibit had called to complain. This week, leaders sent a letter
to museum officials, who responded with an e-mail defending the depictions.
"These figurines symbolize the cycle of eating and fertilization of the
earth, which is a requisite for future existence," wrote Copia Executive
Director Peggy Loar, according to a news release circulated Friday by the
Catholic group.
To which Catholic League President William Donohue sarcastically responded
in the release: "Now I get it: To show his appreciation of Mother Earth,
Miralda had to show the pope and nuns defecating. But why couldn't he have
chosen the Lone Ranger and Tonto instead? Or better yet, just Tonto and a
few of his Indian buddies."
In an interview Friday, Loar said the activists were spreading inaccuracies.
"It's surprising that a national organization would send out a news release
with so much misinformation about one artwork in an entire exhibit they have
never seen," she said.
The 35 figurines, each about the size of a chess piece, are rooted in
Spanish Catholicism. "They're called caganers and they're part of a Catholic
Catalonian tradition that dates back to the 1800s," Loar said. "They're
included in nativity scenes to ensure good luck for farmers in the following
year. We've done our homework on this."
A museum spokeswoman said the Catalonian figurines were traditionally
peasants, not Popeye, Santa Claus or the pope, as included in the exhibit.
Loar blasted the group for claiming that the museum received $75 million in
public funding, saying the Copia had only recently received a $50,000
government grant.
"And I think the group's mention of Tonto and his buddies in their release
is insulting to American Indians. This from a group that touts religious and
civil rights."
Donohue was unavailable for comment Friday. But Scully said the comments
showed the "ludicrousness" of the artist's vision.
"The fact is you won't see any museum showing an American Indian defecating
because those images are important to people and they're sensitive," he
said. "But when it comes to Catholic imagery, it's open season for the arts
community. And that's not right."
Scully acknowledged that neither he nor Donohue had seen the exhibit.
Napa City Councilman Harry Martin said Catholic museum volunteers had quit
over the works.
"It gives Napa a black eye," he said. "People promote this place as the
shrine of Napa. Locals say they no longer have to go to the Louvre in Paris
because the Parisians are going to come here.
"Now local Catholic groups are canceling functions there. This may bring a
few curiosity seekers, but that's a one-shot deal."
Named for the Roman goddess of abundance, Copia aspires in its advertising
to be "the world's leading cultural center dedicated to the discovery,
understanding and celebration of wine, food and the arts."
The two-story structure of stone, concrete, metal and glass, with 13,000
square feet of gallery space, opened last fall. The brainchild of vintner
Robert Mondavi, the museum offers wine tasting and gourmet dining along with
public programs in its demonstration kitchen, classrooms, gardens and
theaters.
The $55-million nonprofit museum is in large part funded by private
donations, including $20 million from Mondavi.
"Active Ingredients," which runs through April 22, features specially
commissioned food-related works by seven contemporary artists. Miralda, a
Catalonian artist based in Miami, filled 11 refrigerated soda cases with
found objects as part of his continuing project "Food Culture Museum."
In a Nov. 25 review, Times critic Suzanne Muchnic wrote: "Grouped according
to themes, the collection of kitsch and bric-a-brac presents everything from
a giant red plastic light-up tongue and a batch of chamber pots to statuary
portraying eating and drinking rituals in various cultures."
In the past, the Catholic League has launched campaigns against
"anti-religious" exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum of Art gallery, including a
portrait of the Virgin Mary smeared in elephant dung and an interpretation
of a famous Leonardo da Vinci painting showing a near-naked African woman in
place of the Christ figure. The work was called "Yo Mama's Last Supper,"
Scully said.
He said the group did not plan to picket the Napa museum. "But we want to
shine the light of truth on this incredible misuse of taxpayer dollars," he
said.
Activists plan to contact museum trustees, including wine and art
luminaries. "We're going to ask these folks if they're aware of this part of
the exhibit. And do they approve of it," Scully said.
And they plan to send another missive to their members.
"I'm sure the good people of California will be better informed on how to
spend their entertainment money," Scully said. "Especially if they're
Catholic, they may want to go to a different museum or maybe a ballgame. For
the Copia, this is an inauspicious start."
theo
revenue.
telestar
on the Church. Storm the exhibit and burn it. Excommunicate Antoni Miralda
if he is a Catholic.
"TheRock" <Amer...@No1.com> wrote in message
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Joe
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"TheRock" <Amer...@No1.com> wrote in message
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