The first prominent person to refer to Sen. Barack Obama as "the Messiah" was Illinois House Speaker and fellow Democrat Michael Madigan, but he said it in a derisive fashion.
As numerous news outlets and blogs have reported, School of the Art Institute of Chicago student David Codero created a statue, meant to "create dialogue," of Illinois' junior senator portrayed as Jesus.
The Obama campaign wisely chose not to claim their candidate is the Messiah. A staffer said that the Democratic presidential candidate is not a fan of art that offends religious beliefs, according to CBS 2 Chicago.
The School of the Art Institute has a tradition of outrageous art that seems to succeed in only drawing attention to the artists. In 1988, a painting of Harold Washington in women's underwear was removed from the premises of the school by three Chicago aldermen. As I recall, the artist, David Nelson, was trying to make a point over what he viewed as the undeserved "deification" of the then-recently deceased mayor. Yeah, perhaps the painting is over-the-line, but compared to some of the caricatures I've see of President Bush, it's pretty tame.
Not to be outdone, a year later, an art exhibit that encouraged walking on a United States flag was produced by an artist with the odd name of Dread Scott.
I suppose some whacko student over the years has done a painting of tree or a flower over the years for the school's annual student exhibition. If that happened, I'm sure the student got an 'F.'
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