Yo Mama's Last Supper is a work of art by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 12 black men and a naked black woman (the artist's self-portrait) posed in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. Cox is pictured naked and standing, with her arms reaching upwards, as Jesus.
In 2001, the piece was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as part of an exhibition called Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was offended by the work and called for the creation of a panel to create decency standards for all art shown at publicly funded museums in the city. The work has also been included in other exhibitions about artistic depictions of The Last Supper, in locations such as the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut; a church in Venice, Italy; and a gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Famous quotes containing the words mama and/or supper:
“My Mama has made bread
and Grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen”
—Lucille Clifton (b. 1936)
“This race is never grateful: from the first,
One fills their cup at supper with pure wine,
Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge,
In bitter vinegar.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)