Chris Ofili

From Philosopedia

Ofili, Chris (1968 -)

The Holy Virgin Mary, which artist Ofili painted, includes a large image collaged with lumps of elephant dung and close-up photographs of female genitalia. The work was shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1997.

When it was scheduled to appear in a show, “Sensation: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection,” at the Brooklyn Museum, New York City’s Catholic mayor, Rudy Giuliani, threatened to cut off the museum’s city subsidity and remove its board if the show with Ofili’s “sick stuff” was not canceled. The resultant furore over First Amendment rights had the city’s Catholic archbishop siding with the mayor but had artists and others rebuking those who try to censor artists.

“I was brought up a Catholic and was an altar boy,” the British-born African artist told reporters from his London home. “I believe in God, but I’m not dominated by it. We all studied math, but we don’t go around spewing numbers. Religion should be used in the appropriate way. The church is not made up of one person but a whole congregation, and they should be able to interact with art without being told what to think. This is all about control. We’ve seen it before in history. Sadly, I thought we’d moved on.”

Ofili obtained the elephant dung from the London Zoo. “There’s something incredibly simple but incredibly basic about it,” he said. “It attracts a multiple of meanings and interpretations.” He places clumps of the dung carefully on each canvas. On one a clump of dung is a jeweled brooch encrusted with gold sparkles on a goddess. In another it is an abstract element floating in a densely painted background. In yet another, five balls of dung descend in a line, each with a letter formed from colored pins spelling out the name Rodin. Many of the works rest on two large clumps of dung, which act almost as feet. “It’s a way of raising the paintings up from the ground and giving them a feeling that they’ve come from the earth rather than simply being hung on a wall,” explained the winner of a 1998 Turner Prize for young British artists.

{Carol Vogel, “Holding Fast to His Inspiration,” The New York Times, 28 September 1999}