Back in 1999, Deputy Mayor and Chief Aesthete Joseph J. Lhota threatened to revoke $7 million in funding from the Brooklyn Museum because it dared to display a painting of the Virgin Mary that used elephant dung as one of its mediums. Lhota, whose own controversial performance art piece, "Fuck You, Pay Me," debuted in 468 subway stations earlier this month, told the Times that he wouldn't change a thing about how he handled the issue. “I don’t regret the tactics—at all,” Lhota said. “As a concept, it was offensive.”
The Republican mayoral candidate does acknowledge that he has mellowed since he was just an eager, ignorant, hot-tempered young man of, uh, 45, who was merely trying to please his boss. If another painting was exhibited in a public museum, say, a painting of Bob Ross and Mother Teresa gleefully shaving Joe Lhota's mustache (contact us for commissions), how would he react if he was mayor?
“Ask them nothing. Probably go see it. Enjoy it. Hope there is a ribbon cutting…I have a much clearer understanding of the First Amendment now."
Jack Josephson, who was a boardmember at the Brooklyn Museum at the time of the "scandal" (which died down eventually) isn't so sure:
He did it once; he could certainly do it again. If you are a museum person today, you’d have to keep this in the back of your mind. They all should be worried that they might do something that would offend a Mayor Lhota.
George McDonald, one of Lhota's opponents in the Republican primary, prepared a memo to donors that was obtained by the Wall Street Journal outlining why there will never be a Mayor Lhtoa, citing the candidate's inescapable ties to Giuliani. Then again, George McDonald has less than $2,000 in his campaign coffers, while Lhota has more than $650,000, enough for at LEAST two "Piss Christs."
