Controversy surrounds several of this year's entries for Australia's Blake Prize for Religious Art. Luke Sullivan's statue "The Fourth Secret of Fatima," depicts the Virgin Mary in a blue Taliban-era burqa. Priscilla Brack's entry, "Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross," is a holographic image that juxtaposes Osama bin Laden and Jesus by having one morph into the other as the angle of view changes. The two have been accused of blasphemy and worse. PM John Howard admits he has not seen the pieces, but has roundly condemned them as "gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians."
Read brief comments from Rev. Rod Pattenden, Chair of the Blake Prize, and Rev Dr Jione Havea, one of the judges of this year's Prize, here. Priscilla Bracks' comment on her entry and the controversy is here.
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