MADRID—Photographs of women posing sexily as nuns at an exhibition in Spain sparked outrage and complaints of blasphemy from Catholic and conservative groups on Thursday.
“Obscenity,” an exhibition of 50 photographs by the Canadian artist Bruce LaBruce, includes a portrait of Spanish actress Rossy de Palma in a black and white habit and see-through corset with a rosary between her teeth.
Another shows Alaska, a singer well known in Spain, dressed as a sexy saint in black with a communion wafer on her tongue.
The show, which opened Thursday at the Fresh Gallery in Madrid, drew condemnation from the Eucharistic Ministry, a Catholic group, which called for a demonstration “against blasphemy” outside the venue on Friday.
It said the protest would be held “in defense of our Christian roots and the Catholic faith.”
“Blasphemous provocation threatens again,” a conservative campaign group, Make Yourself Heard, said on its website.
The Francisco Franco Foundation, a group that campaigns to preserve the memory of Spain’s former dictator, branded the exhibition “a virulent and morbid attack on the Catholic religion.”
LaBruce, 48, whose work has often sparked protests and censorship, wrote on the gallery’s website that “the lives of the saints are full of ecstatic acts of sublimated sexuality.”
“‘Obscenity’ presents a series of portraits that illustrate this most holy convergence of the sacred and the profane.”