Even for Melrose, Torture in the Art Gallery Is Bizarre

Angelenos are not easily shocked.

When an exhibit exploring the convergence of religion and sadomasochism opened last Friday night at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in West Hollywood, a handful of protesters showed up to denounce the show as blasphemous and obscene. The major effect of their presence was to alert TV and the other media to the occurrence of something more bizarre than usual on Melrose.

You couldn’t beat the visuals. There’s a sculpture of a bloodied victim swinging in a cage outside the second-floor gallery.

Unlike the protest, the opening itself attracted 2,000 people, who jockeyed for gasping room in front of almost 100 works, including Krystine Kryttre’s functional Tortured Martyr Incense Burner and Night Light ($1,200) and a pen-and-ink drawing by Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, which was not for sale. It shows a hooded executioner holding up a severed head.

Adam Parfrey, who organized “Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs,” as the show is called, was pleasantly surprised by the media attention. The exhibit, he said, grew out of an earlier project, the publication by his Feral House press of an illustrated account of the deaths of early Christian martyrs. It was first published in 1591 and previously reprinted by publishers catering to the gags-and-whips crowd.

Parfrey, 32, who first came across the martyrology in a used bookstore, was fascinated that it was written by a priest “but was more gruesome than any splatter film I had ever seen.” He decided to reprint the book with the original illustrations, plus commissioned illustrations by shock artist Joe Coleman, who has bitten the heads off mice in performance pieces, and others, including mass murderers Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy and Charles Manson.

The exhibit, which takes its name from the book, includes most of the pieces reproduced in it, plus additional work, wildly divergent in both taste and artistic quality. Indeed, the show at 7400 Melrose Ave. has something to offend almost everyone.

While Parfrey was being interviewed, most of the visitors to the gallery were thin young men in black leather and chains who look as if they do unspeakable things to their kittens. The exception was Holly Wolfle, an elegantly dressed visitor who identified herself as an actress. Wolfle, 26, stayed only a few minutes, disturbed, she said, by the images of tortured women.

“When my stomach started jumping, I thought, ‘I should stay because this is making me feel something,’ but I couldn’t.”

Parfrey said most of the controversial works depicting women, including a series of variations on the famous Varga girl pinups, are by feminist artists, notably Sarita (Crocker) Vendetta.

Given the theme of martyrdom, images of women should be included, Parfrey argued. “I think it’s unfair to consolidate the martyr image into one of a male,” he said. As to the content of the individual works, he said: “Who am I to censor the thoughts of these people.”

Even more controversial is the presence of works, albeit only a few items, by convicted murderers. Parfrey said he wrote to the three killers, requesting contributions, because he was searching “for authenticity on the subject matter.” Inclusion of their work in the exhibit emphasizes the show’s seriousness and helps keep it from being merely camp, he said.

Neither Ramirez nor Manson was paid. Gacy, who is awaiting execution in Illinois for the murders of 33 young men and boys, apparently fancies himself something of an artist, as well as a businessman, and agreed to contribute only if he was paid.

Gacy received $150 (the amount paid to the book’s artist contributors) for a drawing of two Roman soldiers and a trussed victim. Parfrey noted that Gacy sells his small paintings of skulls, witch heads and other subjects for about $300 and claims to have a number of celebrity clients. So far, no visitor to the gallery has asked how to get a Gacy original.

People have been making art about religion, pain and sexuality for centuries, Parfrey said. “This is coming back to an age-old theme, hopefully in a new way.” Response to the exhibit, which continues through March 24, “runs the gamut from outrage to devotion. People have strong opinions about the show. They either love it or hate it.”

Parfrey isn’t sorry that the show gives rise to strong emotions--he thinks too much contemporary art “tends to be bloodless, over-intellectualized and overly commercial.” And if the show isn’t designed for the Disney crowd, neither has it brought out scores of the overtly demented.

“I haven’t had a slavering pervert up here,” Parfrey said, then reconsidered and added, “If he has been, he’s kept it to himself, thank God.”