Sotheby’s Hosts Blasphemous Art

October 1, 2010
By Susan Brinkmann

The famous New York auction house, Sotheby’s, is hosting an art exhibition celebrating Dante’s “Divine Comedy” that contains a mockery of Christ and profane images of priests.

The Catholic League for Catholic and Civil Rights is reporting that the exhibit, which opens today and runs until Oct. 19, contains some 80 pieces of work dating from antiquity that revolve around Dante’s famous poem.

One item, entitled “The Priest”, by artist George Condo, is described as a “weird 2010 depiction” of a deformed animal’s face resting on the torso of a priest. Another image, by Salvador Dali, called “The Vision of Hell, shows pitchforks and a portrait of the Blessed Mother.

But the most offensive piece is by Martin Kippenberger, Zuerst die Fuesse (Feet First). This work, which first appeared in 1990, substitutes a frog for Jesus on the Cross with the crucified amphibian holding a mug of beer and an egg. the rest