Church says the painting hurts religious sentiments.
Artist denies intent to offend, cites literary and symbolic context
Biennale authorities said the halt is temporary
Artist Tom Vattakuzhy’s troubled relationship with religious fundamentalism has resurfaced at the Kochi Biennale, where protests by Catholic groups have forced a temporary halt to an exhibition of his works. The episode once again raises questions about the shrinking space for dissenting artistic expression, particularly when art confronts entrenched religious sensibilities within public cultural institutions.
The flashpoint was Vattakuzhy’s Supper at a Nunnery, a reworking of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper in which a dancer occupies the place of Jesus, surrounded by nuns rather than disciples. While church authorities read the image as an affront to faith, the dispute exposes a deeper tension between symbolic reinterpretation and institutional control over religious imagery. The Syro-Malabar Church maintained that the work crossed the limits of permissible expression, asserting that artistic freedom in a democracy cannot legitimise what it described as the misrepresentation of religious belief.
According to the biennale authorities, the exhibition has been closed at the request of the police. “The exhibition will be reopened as soon as possible” they added.
Tom Vattakuzhy denied charges of hurting religious sentiments.
He emphasised that the paintings displayed at the Biennale were conceived as visual responses to literary texts—short stories, plays, and poems—rather than as standalone works. Supper at a Nunnery, he said, emerged from his engagement with Narthaki, a drama adapted from the work of celebrated Malayalam poet Vailoppilly Sreedhara Menon, which reimagines the life of Mata Hari, executed by the French on charges of espionage. “But the real story of Mata Hari is one of compassion and love,” Vattakuzhy said, adding that his reading of the adaptation evoked the image of a gracious woman, and the painting was the result of the emotions the text triggered in him.
The play by C Gopan, ‘Mrudwangiyudeh Durmruthyu’ (The Unnatural Death of a Soft-Bodied Soul) was based on a significant moment in the life of the Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan Mata Hari.
Tom argued that the imagery was shaped not by irreverence but by emotional and philosophical resonance. For him, Christ is not an external figure bound by iconography, but a constellation of values—compassion, love, and empathy—that recur throughout his work, values he traces to the Christian traditions of his upbringing. The controversy, he maintained, stems less from the content of the painting than from a refusal to recognise metaphor, reinterpretation.
Vattakuzhy told that officers from the Special Branch of the Kerala police had visited him after the protests and that he had explained his position to them.
As the religious outrage grew louder, Vattakuzhy remained unmoved, meeting the charges not with rebuttal but with a response that resisted both provocation and spectacle.
This is not the first time the work has drawn the ire of religious groups. When Supper at a Nunnery was first published in Bhashaposhini, the literary magazine of the Malayala Manorama group, it triggered protests from Church organisations; following this, the issue was withdrawn and an apology issued. Vattakuzhy stated that the work had been commissioned for Manorama and that the publication would decide whether to accept it.
Church authorities have contended that the re-display of the artwork—originally published in the December 2016 issue of Bhashaposhini and withdrawn after objections from believers—creates a presumption of intent, suggesting that its inclusion at the Biennale was a deliberate and malicious act intended to insult the Christian faith. Vattakuzhy has denied the charge, arguing that the Biennale authorities selected the work. He said his works from 2014 are on display.
Tom Vattakuzhy has illustrated extensively for Malayalam literary publications, describing his visual responses to short stories, poems, and plays as “story paintings.” His work has often intersected with public memory and politics. One of his best-known history paintings, Death of Gandhi, received nationwide attention. It was later used as the cover image for the 2020 Kerala Budget. The choice was a deliberate political statement by the then Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac, who said it was meant to remind the Union government that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu communalists. Depicting the moments immediately after Gandhi’s killing, the painting sparked widespread debate and national attention.
Vattakuzhy is a recipient of several major honours, including the AIFACS Award, New Delhi (1997, 1998), the Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi Award (1997), the National Scholarship from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (1996), and the Haren Das Award of the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta (1995).
Based in his hometown of Muvattupuzha in Kerala, Vattakuzhy has exhibited widely across India and abroad. His recent body of work, The Shadows of Absence—curated by noted art historian R. Siva Kumar and organised by the Institute of Contemporary Indian Art—was exhibited in Kolkata last year.
