4. Chris Ofili – Holy Virgin Mary, 1996
The painting did what any truly offensive religious painting should do, it drove an elderly man to an act of vigilantism. A 72-year-old man attended a viewing of the show, faked sickness and leant against a wall – thinking the pensioner was on his last legs – staff let him be just long enough for the old-timer to take out a tube of paint and squirted it all over Ofili’s painting. The mixture of the sacred (Virgin Mary) and the profane (excrement and pornography) became a cause of controversy when the Sensation exhibition moved to New York in 1999. The City of New York and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought a court case against the Brooklyn Museum, with Giuliani describing the exhibition of Ofili’s work as “sick” and “disgusting”. Giuliani attempted to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the museum and then threatened it with eviction. The museum resisted Giuliani’s demands, and its director, Arnold L. Lehman, filed a federal lawsuit against Giuliani for a breach of the First Amendment. The museum eventually won the court case.