Yo Mama's Last Supper
Artist
Renée Cox
(American, born 1960 in Jamaica)
Date1996
MediumFive silver dye bleach prints, mounted on plywood
DimensionsImage: 36 × 180 inches (91.4 × 457.2 cm)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAcquired through the African Acquisition Fund, a purchase fund established through the exchange of gifts from Mr. and Mrs. William W. Brill, and other donors
Terms
- Photographs
- American
Object number97.008 a-e
Label CopyTrained both in film and photography, Renée Cox has been creating controversy since the early 1990s. Committed to celebrating black womanhood and criticizing racism and sexism, she has used her work to make social critiques on a range of subjects, from institutionalized religion to motherhood. Yo Mama’s Last Supper is part of a body of work, Committed, in which Cox appropriated European religious masterpieces and repopulated them with black figures. Here she remade Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper with herself portraying a nude Jesus surrounded by black disciples—except for Judas, who is white. The artist commented, “Christianity is big in the African American community but there are no representations of us. I took it upon myself to include people of color in these classic scenarios." ("Staged, Performed, Manipulated," curated by Andrea Inselmann and presented at the Johnson Museum January 24–June 7, 2015)
