February 2001

Eating Her Art: Renee Cox and Yo Mama’s Last Supper

By Bao Ong

Almost five years before Renee Cox’s artwork arrived at the Brooklyn Museum, her large five-panel photographic project had already traveled across the world with little fanfare. After all, it was simply her re-enactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper: twelve men are sprawled across a wooden table covered in an unblemished white cloth with carafes of wine, fluffy piles of bread, fresh fruit and sturdy goblets. Their robes — golden yellow, navy blue, crisp white and earthy brown — accentuate the photo.

But the similarities end there in “Yo Mama’s Last Supper.” Not only are most of the disciples black, but Cox, an African American born in Jamaica, poses as Jesus — nude. A swath of white fabric loops behind her back and rests on both rests, but otherwise, Cox’s hands are outstretched as she gazes upward.

When the Brooklyn Museum included Cox’s work in an exhibit with other contemporary black photographers, her work jump-started a debate amongst politicians, religious groups, art critics and the public. Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights denounced the work for its use of religion to attract attention. To the New York Times, he called Cox’s work disgusting, outrageous and anti-Catholic. The artwork also instigated Giuliani’s intent to create a commission to set “decency standards” to keep works like “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” out of museums that received taxpayer dollars.

“I don’t produce work that necessarily looks good over somebody’s couch,” Cox responded in one interview.

This was not the first time the Brooklyn Museum faced opposition for displaying controversial artwork. Giuliani sought to shut down the museum in 1999 when Chris Ofili’s “Holy Virgin Mary” was on display. It was fashioned out of elephant dung and for weeks the media clung onto the debate of decency in art. The mayor lost his case in court but the debate continued.

At issue was the First Amendment. Giuliani wanted to pull all public funds from museums that failed to reach a so-called decency standard. Most museums in New York receive some sort of public financing. It stirred a public debate over the role of art in a free society: What is art? Should art be offensive? How far do we let artists push the boundaries?

“They do it on purpose; they do it to get more attention,” said Giuliani to the New York Times. ”The problem with it is, if you allow people to continue to do it and not react to it, then it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse.”

For Cox, who has made it her career to address black identity and sexism, her project with “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” was nothing new. She had completed works years before that touched on religion. She’s dressed up as a nun for pictures and once as a Pieta, the Virgin Mary holding Jesus.

On her Web site, Cox is adamant she’ll continue creating work straddling religion, race and sexism.

“I have a right to reinterpret the Last Supper as Leonardo da Vinci created the Last Supper with people who look like him,” she writes. “The hoopla and the fury are because I’m a black female. It’s about me having nothing to hide.”