The Last Pancake Breakfast
Date: 2001 - 2002
Region: North America
Subject: Religious
Medium: Painting
Artist: Chicago artist Dick Detzner
Confronting Bodies: Some Chicago Athenaeum Museum visitors
Dates of Action: 2001-2002
Location: Chicago, Illinois USA
Description of Artwork: Dick Detzner’s he Last Pancake Breakfast is a painting in which advertising icons ranging from Tony the Tiger to Aunt Jemima replace the figures in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork, Last Supper. The controversial painting features a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s pancake syrup as Jesus at the center of the table flanked by Kellogg Rice Crispe’s “Snap, Crackle and Pop,” “Cap’n Crunch”, “Trix the Rabbit”, the Fruit Loop’s “Toucan Sam”, the colonial Quaker Oatmeal man and the other symbols as the Apostles. Dick Detzner writes, "I conceived the idea for The Last Pancake Breakfast as a continuation of a series I had been working on for years, called Corporate Sacrilege.
The Incident: The Last Pancake Breakfast was put on display at the Chicago Athenaeum Museum in 2001. As a modern day re-working/re-thinking of Leonardo da Vinci’s famed religious painting Last Supper, Detzner’s piece has come under criticism. The Chicago-area art museum has reported that since it went on display in February 2001 they have received more than 100 calls protesting the piece.
Results of Incident: The Chicago Athenaeum museum was protested by many who found Detzner's parody of the Last Supper to be religiously offensive.
Source: CNN: http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/CNN_021119.html
