The whole of Sensation, the new exhibit of young British artists now at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, is dirty. Not in the sense of pornography or blasphemy, although each abound in the exhibit. Not even in the literal sense of Chris Ofili's elephant dung, the rumor of whose presence rattled Mayor Giuliani all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Sensation is perceived reality gone wrong, tainted by gunshots and track marks.
The exhibit has unleashed a veritable firestorm of protest and debate across the country. New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani touched off the festivities before Sensation even opened by characterizing Chris Ofili's Virgin Mary painting as an excrement-specked act of blasphemy and threatened to cut the museum's funding and revoke its lease. The New York Post and other conservative and religious elements quickly took up the mayor's cause, which he has since enunciated fully on all three Sunday morning policy programs. Fighting back, of course, were both the art community and advocates of free speech, who looked at Giuliani's attempts to close down the museum as heavy-handed bullying. Even the controversial, erotically-tinged photography of Robert Maplethorpe didn't result in museums' closing their doors.