It's the Artists!

Some are describing this as "vandalism" or even "violence":

A truck driver from Montana who is accused of destroying a controversial piece of artwork at a public art gallery in Loveland was scheduled to appear before a judge through a video link on Thursday afternoon.

Kathleen Folden allegedly screamed "How can you desecrate my lord?" on Wednesday at Loveland Museum and Art Gallery just before breaking some plexiglass surrounding the print of "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" with a crowbar. She then allegedly tore the print and sat on the floor until police arrived.

"Romantic Cannibals" was a 12-panel lithograph that depicted Jesus involved involved a sex act and it also included comic book characters, Mexican pornography, Mayan symbols and ethnic stereotypes. It was part of an 82-print exhibit by 10 artists that opened in mid-September and was scheduled to run through late last month.

"Criminal mischief." Feh! How narrowly bourgeois. How typically philistine.

Nay! Miss Folden is an artist herself! Mischief? Nonsense! She was engaged in a transgressive dialogue with Prof. Chagoya, expressing her interpretive viewpoint via sound, motion, blank verse, creative impact and metaphoric exploration. Clearly Chagoya is suffering from a cramped, narrowly conventional viewpoint which needs to be shaken up by bold new approaches and vistas. Open your mind, Chagoya! Shatter the mental shackles of your quaintly upper middle class academic lifestyle, and interact with the real working class, as exemplified by daring avant-gardists like Folden! If you dare.

Okay. Sarcasm off. If only Chagoya could take off the clown nose for five seconds:

Chagoya told CBS4 by phone he was upset to learn the news that his art had been attacked. He says his work is a critique of corruption in religious institutions, not people's beliefs.

"I don't expect people to agree with me but let's have a civil discussion, you know. I've been getting a lot of hate mail that doesn't have any logical discussion behind it," Chagoya said.

Yeaaaah. He was not trying to attack beliefs by portraying Jesus in a sex act, but rather attacking institutions. That might work on Anne Rice, but if you are getting more oxygen, it's bullshit.

Let's try it this way: I want to dialogue with Chagoya about his Mexican clown pr0n, using his approach. I'll have to open the "civil discussion" with "Hello, Professor. I understand your mother was the town bike before she died of syphilis and your dad was an energetic molester of dairy cattle. What were you thinking when you barfed up that crap you miscall 'art'?"