DENVER—A California artist whose work has been denounced as pornographic by people who want it removed from a Colorado museum says his intention is to critique institutions, not offend people.
A Loveland city official wants the work by Enrique Chagoya removed from an exhibit at the city’s museum. Councilman Daryle Klassen didn’t get enough votes earlier this week to put the issue on the council agenda but says he’ll keep pressing to have what he has called “smut” and “pornography” taken down.
Klassen and about 50 protesters at the Loveland Museum Gallery on Friday object to a part of Chagoya’s 12-panel lithograph that depicts Jesus Christ in a sex act.
“It is visual profanity,” Linda King, an art gallery owner, told the Loveland Reporter-Herald. “It disgraces the God of all creation.”
Chagoya, a professor at Stanford University, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press that he’s surprised by the response to his work, “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals.” He said there were no objections when it was shown last year at a museum in Denver.
“My intentions are not to offend anybody,” Chagoya said. “The main intention of my work is to express my personal concerns about religious institutions, not about the actual religious beliefs, which I respect.”
The piece includes comic book characters, Mexican pornography, Mayan symbols and ethnic stereotypes. It is part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists who have worked with Colorado printer Bud Shark.
Chagoya said the part of his work that critics find objectionable is part of his statement on problems he sees with religious institutions, including the sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church.
“I really respect people’s beliefs,” Chagoya said. “I just hope they respect mine.”
Loveland, about 50 miles north Denver, is known for its promotion of art, including sculptures throughout the city in public places and art shows.
Edwina Echevarria, a Loveland painter, was part of a smaller group of counter-demonstrators outside the museum Friday.
“We have to be a country where freedom of expression thrives,” she told the Reporter-Herald.
