Chocolate Saints . . . Sweet Jesus

29 November 2007 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

I ran across a month-old story in the Christian Post today alerting me to a new display of Cosimo Cavallaro‘s Chocolate Jesus. This show includes eight saints and a recast of the Christ figure (apparently mice destroyed the first one). The Catholic League isn’t protesting this show since the time is less conspicuous and the display isn’t in a ground-floor window. See photos via this link; I’d post the photo here, but the only images of this new show I can find are on an uptight website run by Getty Images. The images on Cavallaro’s website are all presented using Flash, a pet peeve of mine. 

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Chocolate, Sculpture

Painting: Osama bin Laden as Jesus

30 August 2007 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

And the Virgin Mary in a burqa?

Two entries into an Australian competition, the Blake Prize for Religious Art, have caused a bit of a stir. One portrays Osama bin Laden as Jesus:


Bearded Orientals, Making the Empire Cross by Priscilla Joyce Bracks

The painting is a lenticular image in which the viewer can flip between portraits of Jesus and Osama by shifting from side to side.

At the Adelaide Now website, Bracks says “I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don’t accept.” She was, however, very naive if she thought her painting didn’t have the potential to stir up a riot. Unless she agreed with Reverend Rod Pattenden, who said “he didn’t expect the exhibition to be controversial, “because the Christian community doesn’t look at art a great deal”.

Ouch. That last bit hits home. I can’t deny it; Christians in “Western” cultures are largely ignorant of the visual arts (which is why this blog, and others like it, is necessary). Australian Christian Lobby spokeswoman Glynis Quinlan goes on in the aforementioned Nine MSN article to question why such liberties are taken with Christianity and not Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. (Of course we know what can happen when snarky images of Mohammed hit the streets.)

I’m not about to render an interpretation of these paintings of my own, although I will say this image smacks of sensationalism on levels far above Cavallaro’s chocolate Jesus. I don’t know if this was Bracks’ intent (Read more of an interview with her in the Adalaide Now article.). I seem to possess a higher tolerance for potentially offensive imagery than many of my Christian peers. Bearded Orientals does not offend me. We don’t know exactly what Jesus looked like. There are no photographs of Him, nor any portraits — and I’m glad there aren’t either of these things, which would have been quickly turned into idols by us ignorant humans: Grilled cheese sandwich, anyone?

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Chocolate, Christianity, Painting, Sculpture

Chocolate redefined; Main St. project flailing

8 August 2007 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Must be the week of reBlogging, although this isn’t really my intent. As I’ve said before on this blog, I post whenever something catches my eye; the past couple weeks those eyecatchers have been news-snippets. Here are a few more:

    Some industry big-shots are trying to change the way they can define chocolate. Apparently they want to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil. According to Salon, “The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association and 10 other food industry groups want more flexibility in those rigid standards. They seek broad permission to add ingredients, use different techniques, employ new shapes and substitute ingredients — something the standards currently don’t allow.” Yuck. I can barely stand a lot of chocolates anymore after establishing my addiction to Lindt’s 70% chocolate bar. I hope Lindt isn’t a part of the aforementioned compainants.

    In Siloam Springs news, the city approved new asphalt on Main Street. This is all well and good, but what happened to widening the road and putting in a median? It’s supposed to be the gateway to the city; two years back they added signage and a puddle with fountains where the road meets the highway, supposedly the first stages of improving Main Street. Where did the city take a wrong turn and forget this aesthetic improvement?

    People in New Zealand think Facebook.com is a CIA conspiracy. Where would we be without conspiracy theorists! Which I am myself from time to time. I highly, highly doubt this particular theory has any truth to it, however.

And finally this morning, happy birthday to someone on the corner of Twin Springs and College in Siloam Springs today (via the following installation, which I took to be candles, photographed with cameraphone while biking to work):

bday-candles.jpg

Filed under Chocolate, Community planning, Installations, Live car free, Northwest Arkansas, Siloam Springs

An arts pastor on Sweet Jesus

4 May 2007 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

I was introduced to this blog earlier in the week. The art pastor’s long entry on Cavallaro’s chocolate sculpture has some good insights, including this:

    The art, I contend, is not blasphemous for any strictly theological reasons. Have the Councils or Creeds forbidden it? No, they’ve simply enjoined us to promote what is honorable and reverence-inducing. To this I say that if we’re going to allow iron, wood or stone, why not any other physical material? Why not plastic, tinsel or chocolate. They’re all transient. They’re all material. In fact, I would argue, the chocolate comes closest to capturing Jesus’ own words in John 6:55–

    “My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.”

“They’re all transient,” he says. I agree for the most part, but think immediately of Randy Alcorn’s Heaven, making the argument that all things will not be destroyed completely in order to be restored. He further discusses his belief, based on Scripture which he cites, that cultural and artistic works glorifying God will be with us on the New Earth.

Still, from our human perception all material is transient. Nothing lasts, considering the present fallen state of Creation, forever.

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Chocolate, Christianity, Sculpture

Christian response to “My Sweet Lord”

3 April 2007 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

Wonderfully articulate defense of the sculpture from the rejesus blog:

    . . . “Incredibly the gallery has claimed that the timing of this exhibition is just a coincidence. It’s unfortunate because the timing of this exhibition gives the piece real power. Easter, a festival previously associated with Jesus’ death and resurrection has been largely overtaken by the chocolate industry. Seeing this sculpture at this time of year gives it a real edge.”

And an equally well-spoken counterpoint from Arts & Faith:

    “The cross is bitter. It represents death. It is a horror, and, if it is by grace the instrument of our salvation, it is grace at its most severe and excruciating.

    Two hundred pounds of chocolate connotes decadence, indulgence, delectation, surfeit. At best, it is the stuff of Easter, not Good Friday. The contradiction of medium and message is as jarring as a Good Friday Mass set to carnival music. (I’m ever so slightly reminded of the scene in Flags of Our Fathers in which vanilla ice cream sculptures representing the flag-raising of Iwo Jima are set before the ‘Iwo Jima heroes’ at a gala function — and then drenched in a blood-red cherry sauce.)”

Other comments from the blogosphere:

    • “Quick question… If people are protesting the chocolate Jesus why aren’t they protesting “TESTAMINTS”???”

    • As a friend of mine has said over and over, it is only because of the common knowledge that the Pope does NOT issue fatwas that arteests such as this repeatedly muster the “courage” to poke Catholics in the eye. Let them try this with a life sized sculpture of Mohammed, if they have the stones for it. Let them “explore those themes”.

    • Filed under Art, Art and faith, Censorship, Chocolate, Christianity, Modern culture, Sculpture

    Candy bar grafitti

    3 April 2007 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

    This from Eyebeam reBlog, candy bar wrappers designed by 10 of New York City’s most renowned grafitti artists:

    Originally posted at Shey.net. More fun stuff about this from

    Chocolate Bar NYC

    and lots more at

    Format Magazine.

    Filed under Art, Chocolate, Design, Graffiti, Modern culture

    Chocolate Jesus cancelled

    30 March 2007 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

    “My Sweet Lord,” Cosimo Cavallaro’s chocolate Jesus exhibit, has been cancelled. Michelle Malkin suggests “In the land of media dhimmitude, tolerance is a one-way street.” FOXNews is reporting that “Matt Semler, creative director of the Lab Gallery, resigned in protest.”

    I suppose religious and Catholic groups will now claim some sort of victory (The Catholic League’s Bill Donahue was said to be “delighted with the outcome.”). What if I, as a Christian, wanted to see the exhibit? It might have been the most significant part of my Holy Week. Yes, it is just milk chocolate, not a divine 70% Lindt bar. But chocolate is a good thing, even to Catholics, right?

    Apparently not. I’ll have to research some more of the details in regards to these complaints. Because I just don’t get it.

    The gallery director reportedly referred to Donahue’s reaction as a “Catholic fatwa.”

    Filed under Art, Art and faith, Chocolate, Christianity, Modern culture, Sculpture

    Sculpture: Chocolate Jesus

    30 March 2007 by pcNielsen 6 Comments

    From the BBC, “Catholic League head Bill Donahue called it ‘one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.’”

    “It” in this instance is a six foot tall sculpture of Jesus crafted in milk chocolate. Artist Cosimo Cavallaro‘s chocolate Jesus will be displayed in Manhattan’s Lab Gallery. The work represents a nude Christ hanging on the cross.

    In the L.A. Times Donahue elaborates on his sentiment of disgust, “It’s not just the ugliness of the portrayal but the timing. To choose Holy Week is astounding.” But, who has ever seen a pretty crucifixion? The gallery’s creative director told the Times the timing was coincidental.

    What’s the big deal? The gallery is apparently getting all kinds of angry e-mail and phone calls and is “considering its options,” surprised (rightly so) at people’s offense. Cavallaro is known for using food as a medium, and isn’t this better than urine and feces? The best response for Christians to take, as was suggested following the aforementioned feces incident in Brooklyn, is to focus on things they like. Talk about Makoto Fujimura’s amazing paintings etc etc. The negativity is not constructive.

    And for us chocolate lovers of the Christian faith this may as well be a compliment!

    More on the sweet sculpture from Hot Air.

    Filed under Art, Art and faith, Chocolate, Christianity, Modern culture, Sculpture

    A critique of Choxie

    20 March 2007 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

    My grandmother thought chocolate made up the four basic food groups. I was groomed to love chocolate; I love chocolate. I’m probably a chocolate snob.

    Right now my favorite chocolate is Lindt’s 70% bar. The texture and flavor are about the best, if not the best, I’ve ever had. Other high-ranking chocolates include Ferrero Roche and Trader Joe’s chocolate covered coffee beans.

    Thus, it may surprise you to learn it was only this past weekend I took my first bite of any Choxie product. My wife and I visited a Target in need of a wedding gift and picked up some chocolate on the way out. I knew of Choxie and was concerned the packaging would prove better than the product.

    This was not the case. We tried two candy bars — a raspberry lemon and a key lime — both of which were very good. The filling was a bit particular for a candy bar; it seemed to be more the kind of filling Russell Stover aspires to and for some reason can’t achieve. The chocolate wasn’t as dark as I like, and a little soft (my wife didn’t like it getting on her fingers).

    Good thing Target is a 30 minute drive for us. I don’t need another food fetish.

    Filed under Chocolate, Design