A woman armed with a crowbar entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery on Wednesday afternoon and destroyed a controversial exhibit that some said shows Jesus Christ engaged in a sex act.

“The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals,” by Stanford University’s Enrique Chagoya, has been the subject of a week’s worth of protests by those who claim it is blasphemy.

“It’s sad and upsetting,” Chagoya said Wednesday night by phone from California. “I’ve never had this kind of violent reaction to my art. Violence doesn’t resolve anything.”

The suspect was identified by police as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden of Kalispell, Mont. She is in custody on a charge of criminal mischief, a Class 4 felony with a fine of up to $2,000.

Police said the woman entered the museum about 4 p.m. and stood in front of the exhibit. Using a crowbar or similar tool, she broke the plexiglass protecting the image and tore up the artwork. She also cut herself in the process.

Chagoya said the lithograph was one of 30 prints in a limited-edition run.

Police said there were reports of gunfire at the museum, but it turned out the noise was due to the banging of the crowbar against the plexiglass.

Art dealer Mark Michaels told Denver’s 9News that he saw the woman, screaming “How can you desecrate my Lord?” as she broke into the case.

She grabbed the artwork, but he said he stopped her.

“We were just coming in and were standing at the door and I heard a large — like a thump — and somebody yelled ‘Oh, no!’ And I looked up and I saw a nail-puller-type crowbar slamming the plexiglass case several times until she broke it,” Michaels told the TV station.

“And I ran over there, and by the time I got there she had reached in and grabbed the print and was ripping it up, so I pulled her away from the print and put her in the corner and then the police came.”

Bud Shark, who assembled the display for the museum — an 82-print exhibit featuring works from 10 artists — released a statement denouncing the attack.

“(The attack) is the direct result of the inflammatory and false descriptions of the piece in the press and by those protesting its inclusion in our exhibition,” he said.

“The controversial image has been demonized as ‘pornographic,’ ‘obscene’ and ‘depicting Jesus in a sex act’ when none of this is true.”

Loveland City Councilman Daryle Klassen has called the artwork “smut” and initially wanted it removed. But on Wednesday, before the attack at the museum, he said the piece should stay but with a warning of its explicit nature.

“If you go to a XXX-rated movie, at least they have the decency to put a sign out of the theater, letting you know this is what you will see,” Klassen said Wednesday. “I’d like to see something like that, a warning, placed at the museum in this case. But so far, that has not happened.”

“The Misadventures of Romantic Cannibals” is a 7 1/2-inch-high, 90-inch-wide color lithograph print with a series of folded panels similar to an Aztec codex. The final panel shows what some say appears to be Jesus receiving oral sex.

Chagoya indicated he produced the lithograph as a commentary on revelations of child abuse committed by priests in the Catholic Church.

“My work is about critiquing institutions and politics,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to portray Christ; it’s a collage of cutouts from different books.”

Chagoya added that he has received multiple hate e-mails and that protesters have the right to their opinions too, but, he said, “these things shouldn’t escalate.”

Klassen said before the attack that he had received more than 1,700 e-mails supporting his criticism of the piece. Also, at least 200 people showed up at a City Council meeting Tuesday night saying they wanted the artwork removed.

“I’d say the response has been 100-to-1 in support of getting rid of it,” Klassen said.

The Catholic community in Loveland — including members of St. John the Evangelist Church — want the artwork removed, Jeanette De Melo, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Denver, said before the attack.

“The protesters want the exhibit removed. They believe that taxpayers’ dollars should not be going to pornography,” De Melo said.

Officials said the exhibit was donated for free and no tax dollars were used.

Others have supported the artwork and asked that the city not bow to calls for censorship.

“There are many ways to express disagreement with the ideas expressed in an artwork, which do not entail going against the founding principles of this country: the separation of church and state and the right to free speech,” said Svetlana Mintcheva, director of programs for the National Coalition Against Censorship.



Staff writer Yesenia Robles contributed to this report.