Folded Mohammed? Nope: Another Folded Christ

Steve Miller claims to have found a whole new angle to the story about the piece in an art exhibit at the Loveland Museum/Gallery which apparently depicts Jesus Christ involved in what some say is an act of oral sex.

The piece is a folded-paper lithograph and woodcut panel depicting cultural icons. Titled "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals," it was created by California-based artist Enrique Chagoya, a professor at Stanford University.

The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals by Enrique Chagoya. Color lithograph/woodcut. 7½" x 90". Ed. 30. $3400
You can buy it online used to be able to buy it online here, but now it's gone, so maybe it is sold out!

I blasted the professor for taking easy short cuts to Serranoesque/Offiliesque shock art and challenged him that "For his next panel, if he wants to get international attention of a diverse nature to say the least, I dare him to do a similar Muhammad panel."

But apparently, the professor had done this already! And no one has mentioned it, as far as I can tell. According to Steve Miller in a comment in my original post: "None of the talking heads seem to have noticed that Mohammed IS portrayed on one of the panels. He seems to be kneeling before a pair of pigs dressed up like hookers in one of the panels."

See it in the bottom panel? It's the second scene.

Can someone verify this? I will try to email the professor and also the print shop where the piece was made and also the museum.

If this is correct, then my kudos to the professor; he's got some big cojones and I stand corrected.

Update: Prof. Chagoya responded to my request for verification and passes that it is not Mohammed in that panel but another representation of Christ; he says:

First of all there are no representations of the prophet Mohamed. In my book my original source is actually coming from a representation of Jesus in a Persian Manuscript from the 17th Century reproduced in an [Newsweek, March 27, 2000] article by Kenneth L. Woodward in March 27 2000. In my book it represents the spiritual (represented by the Persian illustration of Jesus) protecting himself from temptation with flames around him (the pig ladies are the symbol of temptation in my book). In the online version there are no illustrations but the article matches the hard copy.

So there are no representations of Mohammed in the piece by Prof. Chagoya.

By the way, some idiot destroyed the work that had been on exhibit in the museum:

A woman armed with a crowbar entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery on Wednesday afternoon and destroyed a controversial exhibit that some said shows Jesus Christ engaged in a sex act.

"The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals," by Stanford University's Enrique Chagoya, has been the subject of a week's worth of protests by those who claim it is blasphemy.

"It's sad and upsetting," Chagoya said Wednesday night by phone from California. "I've never had this kind of violent reaction to my art. Violence doesn't resolve anything."

The suspect was identified by police as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden of Kalispell, Mont. She is in custody on a charge of criminal mischief, a Class 4 felony with a fine of up to $2,000.

Police said the woman entered the museum about 4 p.m. and stood in front of the exhibit. Using a crowbar or similar tool, she broke the plexiglass protecting the image and tore up the artwork. She also cut herself in the process.

Read the story online here.