The use of archetypes secures an expected reaction from any given audience. Da Vinci's "Last Supper" had been overused to the extreme of switching the Apostles and Jesus for anything from lizards to dogs to rats; from drag queens to fetishes; from difference races and genders to food and models for Worldwide clothing companies.
The Last Supper, an archetype that produces the same controversial public reaction, can be seen in another similar piece (must be similar since both use the same formal foundation) called: Ecce Homo. A controversial exhibition comprising twelve photographs by the Swedish photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin who chose to depict the characters of the Last Supper as society outcasts namely: homosexuals, transgender people, AIDS victims, lesbians, bondage lovers, fetish practitioners, etc. The exhibition toured Scandinavia and Continental Europe between 1998 and 2000 raising many questions and debates among the Church leaders about the appropriateness of the subject matter.
Here are some examples of the amazing flexibility offered by the power on an archetypical image:
As soon as you create a piece based on Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper the current Status Quo, the public, the Government, the Art World, and the Media will react to it.
It is a given, a fact of life.Renowed artist Renee Cox presented her interpretation of the Last Supper where she is the central subject of the composition posing as Jesus, naked surrounded by poeple of African descendt, dark skinned that is, with "Judas" brilliantly depicted as a white man. She names the piece: "Yo Mama's Last Supper" and media finds interests in her work as it is exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Evidently, she is immediately "tagged" as "controversial artist" and aside from her personal cause, authorial intent and her beautifully crafted photography the result is the same effective commodification of controversy. Had she been wearing clothes, for instance, the final result would have been different because it could have been argued that Jesus was a man with female features, dark skinned, etc. Cox makes sure her message is crisp and clear and nudity carries a high shocking factor as well.
In 1995 Cox along with Fo Wilson and Tony Cokes created the Negro Art Collective aimed to fight cultural misinformation about African Americans. She has also created "Raje" an alter-ego superhero who fights racism and teaches children African American History. Her works has been featured in a Fin de Siècle art festival in Nantes, France. Cox's Last Supper interpretation had been shown in the Venice Biennale in 1999. The piece uses the same principles described before except that this time the symbols are reinterpreted to adjust to her communication and authorial intent: to juxtapose archetypes. Cox depicts all apostles are black except Judas who is white. The Brooklyn Museum of Art included her piece in 2001 as part of the exhibit entitled: Contemporary Black Photographers. The photograph made it to the news when Mayor Giuliani commented about it. He claimed that Cox was showing her anti-Catholic position. Later on in 2001 he created the a Panel of Decency Standards for All Work Shown in Publicly Funded Museums in the City
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