http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MH18Ae01.htmlIt was an unprecedented moment in Philippine art history. There it was splashed on national television, a huge phallus attached to a wooden ashtray - the kind that is sold by sidewalk vendors in tourist destinations - sitting squarely on the face of an image of Jesus Christ.
Since late July, conservative Filipinos led by the Catholic Church have tried their best to prevent that irreverent image from being shown publicly. They have had censorship success: apart from TV networks blurring the image of the penis, conservatives terrorized the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) into shutting down an art exhibition of 32 artists, one of whom was Mideo Cruz, whose Poleteismo work has raised the hue and cry.
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The condemnation has been wide and swift. Poleteismo, the Cruz's critics say, is blasphemous and sacrilegious because it insults Christianity, a dominant force in this largely Roman Catholic nation. The bishops were apoplectic, calling Cruz "sick" and his work "sickening". Even president Benigno Aquino, a devout Catholic, chimed in on the controversy, referring to the art as an "insult" to an entire religion. If this, some said, were done to an icon of Islam then the outcry would have been potentially explosive.
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Recent scandals, including revelations that some bishops and priests have taken ownership of expensive SUVs from the country's gambling agencies when they're supposed to be morally opposed to gambling, have discredited many senior church officials. Aquino's support for the closure of Cruz's exhibit, meanwhile, has been interpreted as a bid to score political points with the increasingly insecure but still influential conservative community. But as the holier-than-thou controversy unfolds, life is in many ways imitating Cruz's irreverent art.
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hugs and kisses for the artists
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