Shark in Sea of Dark Suits
The Brooklyn Museum of Art held a preview last night of "Sensation," the exhibit that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has called "disgusting." A shark in a tank of formaldehyde drew positive responses, but some thought a cut-up cow did not work as well. Page A24. Michael Kimmelman's review, page B31.
Many people, of course, gathered in front of the now-famous painting "The Holy Virgin Mary," which is festooned with elephant dung and has become the centerpiece of the dispute between the city and the museum. . . .
[Art collector Peter] Norton, for one, was quite taken with the "Virgin Mary."
"I was surprised how pretty, how lyrical, how sympathetic it is," he said. . . . "It has the glowing quality of cloisonne or terrazzo." . . .
The exhibit also contains several pieces by Damien Hirst, who works mostly in dead fish and animals. These include a shark, a sliced-up cow, a lamb and a bisected pig in formaldehyde-filled cases and a Rube Goldberg-like device in which maggots feed on a dead cow's head and give birth to flies, which are eventually zapped by an electrical device called an "insect-o-cutor." . . .
[Museum curator Arnold L. Lehman] quickly turned serious, saying: "Public funding of the arts is an investment in the values and the ideals embodied in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. . . . The Brooklyn Museum is more than just one work of art that incorporates animal dung."