Courage

"WSJ: The 1938 A. Conger Goodyear House, in Old Westbury,
Long Island, was brought back to life by Aby Rosen and
Samantha Boardman. Damien Hirst’s sculpture The Virgin
Mother stands on the front lawn. PHOTO: ADRIAN GAUT"

I like to ogle the mansions of the rich and famous as much as the next guy or gal, but I confess to being a little taken aback by the sculpture in front of a restored Long Island estate.

The stylized cross-section of a pregnant woman arouses emotions--probably not disgust, given modern exposure to horrors--but to entitle the piece Virgin Mother (there was only one in history) is deliberately provocative.

But it's OK to tweak Catholic or Christian sensibilities because those people will just complain, if even that. Now, if the artist had shown the Prophet gestating inside his mother's womb, that would have been courageous.

(BTW, the sculpture did remind me of the Body Worlds exhibit we saw nine years ago.)