Yo Mama's Last Supper is a work of art, made in 1996 by Jamaican-AmericanartistRenée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black woman (the artist's self-portrait)[1] posed in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci's 1490s painting The Last Supper. Cox is pictured naked and standing, with her arms reaching upwards, as Jesus.[2]
In 2001, the piece was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as part of an exhibition called Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers.New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was offended by the work and called for the creation of a panel to create decency standards for all art shown at publicly funded museums in the city.[3][4] Art scholar Camille Paglia, however, said in 2012 that "Renée Cox is an important black photographer and a performance artist, who uses herself... This, I think, is a serious statement, this work. It might be shocking to have a nude black woman in the position of Christ, but I think, as a whole, the work had some dignity, it had gravitas."[5]
S. Brent Plate, Blasphemy: Art that Offends, Black Dog Publishing, London, 2006. ISBN978-1904772538
Francesca Bonazzoli, Michele Robecchi, Mona Lisa to Marge: How the World's Greatest Artworks Entered Popular Culture, Prestel, New York, 2014. ISBN978-3791348773
References
^Tinti, Mary. "Cox, Renee". www.oxfordartonline.com. Oxford Art Online. Retrieved 7 March 2015.