Some local mothers are angry about a new multimedia exhibit (including profanity and what they say look like BDSM imagery) that sits front and center in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall.
Words like “fk it” and “lick it” are projected on six large screens along with phrases like “This is the new world order” and “May you be filled with lust.” There are images of apparently naked men with their genitals blurred and men standing over other men who appear to be wearing dog collars. Vandalized New York Police Department patrol cars are seen in a junkyard with burned school buses.
“I saw a ‘Mad Max’ scene in a wasteland with people dressed in sadomasochistic clothing and others who seemed to be fornicating with the dirt,” said one Upper East Side mother who asked that only her first name, Jennifer, be used. “There was [images] of two women with a cross with a skull on it, who seemed to be stabbing the earth. Lots of people with bright eyes. It seemed satanic and demonic to me. Imagine a child standing in line with his parents to buy tickets to the Met. There is no escape… If anything, he should be in a separate area with age requirements and parental guidance.”
The F-word is used several times in “A Metta Prayer,” a new multimedia exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall that has angered some mothers over what they consider inappropriate sexual and “demonic” imagery. . Dana Kennedy Mothers interviewed by The Post complained that young children “can’t escape” the images from the “A Metta Prayer” exhibit projected on the walls of the Met lobby. Dana Kennedy
Jennifer said she made a formal complaint to the Met last week but received no response.
A spokeswoman for the Met, which is supported in part by taxpayer money, emailed a statement to the Post on Tuesday.
“The Met supports the artist’s right to creative expression and freedom of expression,” a museum spokeswoman said in an email. “At a time when Black and LGBTQ+ communities face continued threats of violence, “Jacolby Satterwhite’s powerful project for the Met’s Great Hall creates a space of contemplation that celebrates emotion, exuberance, and resilience.”
“My daughter takes an art class at the Met and last week they brought them into the lobby and I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Kate, a Manhattan mother of an 11-year-old daughter, told The Post. “There’s a whole group of about 15 kids here, ages 8 to 12, and we walked by these giant video screens with things that were so shocking and inappropriate.”
“A Metta Prayer” is projected on six giant screens in the Met’s Great Hall. Stefano Giovannini for the NY Post Artist Jacolby Satterwhite told The Post that what some see as “BDSM” images are inspired by a gay wrestling collective called Chokehole. Dana Kennedy
The work is part of an ambitious exhibition, “A Metta Prayer,” by Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Jacolby Satterwhite, 37, that opened this month and runs through January.
It is billed as a “multichannel video installation…based on a computer-generated landscape of an imagined New York City” and borrows from Titian, video games, and many of the Met’s artworks.
“Satterwhite draws inspiration from the Buddhist prayer Metta, a mantra of loving kindness, to construct a narrative that rebels against the conventions of commercial video games,” the Met said in its description of the commission. “Instead of perpetuating violence, the characters in ‘A Metta Prayer’ dance, act, preach and pose.”
Artist Jacolby Satterwhite said “A Mette Prayer” is a life-affirming Buddhist work that represents the darkness and light that humans struggle to keep in balance. Deonté Lee/BFA.com
But mothers who spoke to The Post said they don’t think it’s appropriate for children, and they don’t think “loving kindness” is conveyed as much as what one of them called “demonic” imagery.
“I felt like this is not the institution we know or what we consider the museum to be,” Kate added. “It is supposed to be the center of culture and learning, also for children… It was very unpleasant for me. A person was holding someone with a chain and that person was on their knees crawling on the ground, so many strange things about the new world order. “I don’t like kids being exposed to this.”
Contacted by The Post on Tuesday, Satterwhite said his work was being misinterpreted if anyone thought it was satanic or overtly sexual.
Artist Jacolby Satterwhite said his work was being misinterpreted if anyone thought it was satanic or overtly sexual. Stefano Giovannini for NY Post “Don’t take your kid to a damn museum if you don’t want him to learn,” Satterwhite told The Post.Stefano Giovannini for NY Post
One of the dancers in the videos that make up “A Metta Prayer” was O’Shae Sibley, 28, murdered at a Coney Island gas station in July. Sibley had been trending a Beyoncé song at the time. Satterwhite said part of “A Metta Prayer” is a tribute to him.
Satterwhite has been open about using BDSM imagery in previous work, such as a performance art piece he did at a party for Grindr, the dating app for gay men, in which performers dressed in leather and recreated the experience. of gay cruising in Central Park in the 80s. .
The “Chokehole” wrestlers participate in a type of queer and drag wrestling. Dana Kennedy Images of a wrecked NYPD cruiser in what looks like an apocalyptic junkyard appear several times in “A Metta Prayer.” Dana Kennedy
But he said Tuesday that what the mothers saw as images of BDSM are actually images of so-called “Chokehole” wrestlers that Satterwhite, who is gay, described as a type of queer, drag wrestling.
“Would these moms mind if we showed a retro Hulk Hogan?” Satterwhite asked. “This is a queer wrestling collective. The paradox is that they are a community of queers who love each other and unite people. “They are simulating violence under the pretext of uniting people.”
The videos feature dancer O’Shae Sibley, who was murdered while dancing in what authorities are calling a hate crime. Sage O. Dumure Versailles/Facebook
Satterwhite had little patience for those who made complaints about his exhibition at the Met.
“They just see blackness and queerness, which is what a lot of people hate the most,” Satterwhite said. “The piece is based on a Buddhist prayer and that journey. It’s about both sides of you fighting to be a good person. Don’t take your child to a damn museum if he doesn’t want him to learn. Go to the Frick and look at the flowers.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn