Artwork depicting the Virgin Mary as a stripper stirred trouble while on display at a small Catholic university before the piece was apparently stolen. The print was part of an exhibit last month at the University of Dallas that featured the work of students at Murray State University in Kentucky.
Joanna Gianulis, a senior art major at Murray State, said she was trying to raise questions about perceptions of saints and sinners and didn't intend to be sacrilegious.
"How do we know that an exotic dancer is sinful?" she said. "What if she has the best intentions and strives only to help those in need?
"Many single mothers are in this position and that is another reason why I chose to reference the Virgin Mary, because she was another woman who was in a tough position and probably received much criticism because of it."
Gianulis said she has no digital image of the print. Others who have seen it say it includes a veiled young woman wearing pasties and a G-string with money stuck in it.
The display went up Feb. 8 and prompted complaints within a couple of days. University President Frank Lazarus was away from the campus in the Dallas suburb of Irving when it was displayed but went to see it when he returned.
Lazarus said he found the print objectionable but didn't remove it because of concerns about restricting academic freedom. Instead, he and other officials decided to put up signs warning that some items might be considered offensive.
"It was imprudent of (Lazarus) to leave it up," said Tom Lagarde, a member of the Class of '97 and secretary of the school's national alumni board. "Regardless of what the artist's message was ... the means she used were illicit, at least for Catholics."
Lazarus said he was considering further restrictions when the piece was discovered missing Feb. 14. Campus police are investigating the case as a theft.
Joshua Neu, a junior majoring in English and philosophy, was among those upset by the print.
"The university ought not display images that make profane that which the institution holds sacred," he said.
Jeanne Luthi, a senior art major at UD, said students need to see contemporary art, even if some of it is upsetting.
"People read (philosopher Friedrich) Nietzsche in the core curriculum, and that's fairly anti-Christian," she said. "It just feels like the visual arts are being held to a completely different standard."
Asked for her description of the piece, Gianulis wrote in an e-mail:
"The work is a black and white woodcut relief print depicting a scantily clad stripper wearing a veil and holding a rosary. Other details in the work are scrolls saying 'Sinner or Saint?' in Spanish and referencing the Virgin (of) Guadalupe, and also a snake, some white lilies, a pair of scales, and also a small image of a bar of soap opposite a bottle marked 'xxx.'"
The Virgin of Guadalupe is a revered image to many Catholics, particularly Hispanics who accept the legend of the 16th-century appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to a Mexican peasant.
Dallas is a center of Virgin of Guadalupe devotion, and its downtown cathedral is named for her.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce