Continuing through October 13, 2012
The priests are getting skewered in Masami Teraoka’s latest lavish and gold-gilded panels in "The Last Supper Series." Or perhaps it is those gray-faced men of the robe who are doing the skewering - as the tabletops are not so much for eating the last supper as for providing a stage for women in various degrees of undress. None of the women were wearing much to begin with, just thongs, thigh-high hose, and sharp stilettos. One cardinal reveals similar attire when his robe blows open. While the degree of lechery and debauchery is self-evident, the level of monstrosity increases with the looking; slices of breast, human breast, slither off the platter and babies hang by their umbilical cords by the sainted whores.
It is a shuddering paroxysm; the Church is having a guilty nightmare. Luckily, there is respite nearby in the form of Teraoka’s large watercolors on unstretched canvas in the adjacent room. The subject matter may be as dismal (AIDS), but the cool blue reserve and beauty of his watercolors offer relief to the eyes. It must all be seen, but know that it is a grand, but unfunny lampoon.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2012
