FRANCE: Andres Serrano's Piss Christ Destroyed By Catholic Protesters

After weeks of demonstrations, yesterday Catholic protesters in France destroyed NYC artist Andres Serrano's classic and controversial Piss Christ. The UK Guardian reports:

The work has previously been shown without incident in France, but for the past two weeks Catholic groups have campaigned against it, culminating in hundreds of people marching through Avignon on Saturday in protest. Just after 11am on Sunday, four people in sunglasses entered the gallery where the exhibition was being held. One took a hammer from his sock and threatened security staff. A guard restrained one man but the remaining members of the group managed to smash an acrylic screen and slash the photograph with what police believe was a screwdriver or ice pick. They then destroyed another photograph, of nuns' hands in prayer.

Protests against the photograph had also gained the support of France's far-right National Front party. The gallery's owner says the destroyed artwork will remain on display "so people can see what barbarians can do."

Art Project: Google's Interactive Trips Through The World's Great Museums

Google has launched Art Project, an interactive site allowing users to wander around the world's great museums and zoom in on masterpieces with great detail. Pretty damn cool. And talk about an internet time suck!

GOP Congressional Group Plans To Cut Federal Funding For The Arts To ZERO

A coalition of Tea Party-backed Congress members headed by wingnut Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) plans to cut 100% of all federal funding for the arts.

A group of conservative Republicans, called the Republican Study Committee, revealed a new plan on Thursday to cut federal funding for arts down to zero. This means the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be left in the cold. Not to mention the potential hit at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Run by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the over 150-person group's plan, the Spending Reduction Act of 2011, would "save" $167.5 million pulled from the NEA and the Humanities endowment and $445 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They are forecasting that this erasure of cultural funding would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over the next decade.

MoMA Gets Censored Smithsonian Exhibit

New York City's Museum of Modern Art has acquired the video created by late gay artist David Wojnarowicz, which was pulled by the Smithsonian after an outcry from the GOP and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.

The museum acquired both the original 13-minute version of the video, titled “A Fire in My Belly,” and a separate 7-minute excerpt made by the artist; the two are now being shown in a loop as part of a display of contemporary art from the museum’s collection that will remain up until May 9. Mr. Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, made the video in the late 1980s in response to the AIDS crisis. It was included in a show at the National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian museum, examining gay themes in American portraiture but was removed after it was attacked by Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, and several Republican congressmen who objected to an image in the video of ants crawling on a crucifix.

Another artist is threatening to sue the Smithsonian in a protest demand to have his own work removed.

UPDATE: The Catholic League's Bill Donohue isn't too upset with the MoMA move, but he still manages to call the museum's (straight and married) director a "queen."

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum's director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing. Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the "pathological nonsense" of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.

These are Chalk Paintings for real!