In an opening scene of a Simpsons episode, Bart writes on a chalkboard over and over, “I will not create art from dung.” Bart's penance on the TV show was directly related to an exhibit that had opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999. This exhibit was called “Sensations: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection” and featured the work of a variety of edgy artists. One of these, Chris Ofili, created a painting of the Virgin Mary that was dappled with elephant manure and encircled by pornographic images.

The Holy Virgin Mary was the most infamous and hotly contested piece in the exhibit, attracting over 300,000 people who needed to see this image for themselves. The image also generated a passionate response from the religious communities in New York City.

The Holy Virgin Mary

The Holy Virgin Mary contained a large Black Madonna who was surrounded with disembodied pornographic images. The painting was also created using elephant manure, a substance that the artist used frequently in his work. Supporters of Chris Ofili's art said that in the African culture from which Ofili drew his inspiration, dung and urine don't have the same negative connotation that Americans attach to them. These claims, however, did nothing to curb the backlash against the exhibit. New York's mayor at the time, Rudolph Giuliani, described it as “very sick stuff.”

Even before the exhibit opened there were protests. One selfdescribed artist stood in front of the museum, throwing manure at the museum's façade. When the police took him away, he explained that he was “expressing himself creatively,” and that the painting of the Virgin Mary was just a form of Catholic-bashing.

Giuliani threatened to take away the city's funding of the museum for the month, and also expressed a desire to pull its lease. Like many of the opponents of the exhibit, he was particularity appalled by the image of the Virgin Mary. According to Giuliani, his position was not related to censorship but was primarily focused on concerns that public funds should be used appropriately. According to Giuliani, “art” that was deeply offensive to a large portion of the tax-paying public was not a proper use of funds. The case eventually went to court and the judge ruled in favor of the museum because of the First Amendment.

Neither the manure-slinging man nor Giuliani was successful in preventing the exhibit from opening. After the manure incident, the Brooklyn Museum of Art realized that more attacks were likely, so they covered the image with Plexiglass. The Plexiglass did not, however, deter a retired English teacher named Dennis Heiner who showed up at the exhibit with a tube of white paint. As he approached the image of the Virgin Mary, he leaned against a wall, pretending to be ill. He then snuck behind the Plexiglass and made a line of white paint all down the Virgin's face and body. He quickly spread the white paint with his hands all over the painting, effectively concealing the image.

When he was caught, he made no attempt to escape. When a security guard asked him why he had defaced the painting, he quietly responded, “It's blasphemous.” Heiner was later charged with second-degree criminal mischief and a $250 fine. The verdict was seen as quite lenient by the arts community.

In the years since, Chris Ofili has toned down his work a bit. In an interview with The New York Magazine, Ofili told a reporter, “At the time, I felt quite vulnerable. I didn't really know what the American rules are. I didn't know how extreme things could get.” When The New York Times interviewed Ofili, he refused to describe his inspiration or give any interpretation of the work, because he felt that viewers should interpret it for themselves.