"Pieta" by Elizabeth Ohlson Wallin, 1998
The "Jesus" in this picture was a gay man, who was about to die of AIDS. The artist wanted him to pick his Pieta. He chose a female leather bar employee, well known in Stockholm for mothering gay man. They posed at the door of the AIDS ward of a Stockholm hospital.
The man wanted people to remember him after his death - but his "Jesus" experienced his own personal resurrection. Shortly after the photo shoot, he began taking the new Aids drug cocktail. A decade later, Ohlson Wallin could proclaim "Jesus is alive!" And the AIDS ward no longer exists.
Information gleaned from Kittredge Cherry, 'Art that Dares. Gay Jesus, Woman Christ and More' Androgyne press, Berkeley CA, 2007.
Thanks for quoting my book "Art That Dares" here. I hope you and your family had a happy Father's Day! Thanks again for letting me use your family photo to help illustrate the nurturing love of fathers in my Father's Day Post on Reimagining God the Father
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