#USA #NY – A controversial art exhibition by Jesuit artist Nicholas Leeper, S.J., titled Twilight of the Idols, opened on May 9, 2026, at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, after the Archdiocese of New York cancelled the show at its affiliated Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.
The exhibition, which ran through May 29 in the parish’s Mary Chapel in partnership with Xavier High School where Leeper taught art, Scripture, and ethics, featured 14 paintings that blended Byzantine iconography with pop art and commercial advertising imagery. Works incorporated gold leaf and Benday dots, reimagining sacred figures through mid-20th-century consumer culture motifs.
Central pieces included Madonna and Child (Tomatokos), which depicted the Virgin Mary as a 1950s housewife from a Campbell’s soup advertisement, holding a can of tomato soup in place of the Christ child. Other works portrayed The Visitation as a midcentury cigarette ad featuring Mary and Elizabeth, a pregnant Mary modeled after actress Sharon Tate in Madonna del Parto (Once Upon a Time … in Bethlehem), and Abraham as a Santa Claus figure from Coca-Cola advertisements.
Leeper, a Jesuit scholastic, described the exhibition — named after Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1889 critique of Christianity — as an exploration of idolatry versus iconography. He argued that the works invited viewers to “find God in all things,” including consumer culture, and challenged rigid aesthetic preferences in religious art. “An idol isn’t an object; it’s an outlook,” he stated. “Sacred art is less about looks and more about looking.”
The Sheen Center initially agreed to host the solo show following discussions but cancelled it about two weeks before the planned opening after receiving complaints via phone calls and emails. The archdiocese did not publicly detail the specific concerns.
Fr. Kenneth Boller, SJ, pastor of St. Francis Xavier, quickly offered the Mary Chapel as a new venue. “I appreciate his work and the perspective he has on it to present our own Catholic belief that the Holy Family and the various saints were ordinary human beings touched by the divine,” Boller said. He compared the approach to historical adaptations like Renaissance depictions or Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Jack Raslowsky, president of Xavier High School, expressed disappointment in the Sheen Center’s decision, calling it a missed opportunity for dialogue.
The Church of St. Francis Xavier, long known for its progressive ministries including outreach to homosexual Catholics and social justice initiatives, defended the exhibit as aligning with Jesuit traditions of cultural engagement. Critics, including conservative Catholic outlets, condemned the works as blasphemous and sacrilegious, arguing they trivialized sacred imagery.
Leeper hoped the show would foster conversation amid broader debates in the Church over aesthetics, tradition, and contemporary faith expression. The exhibition drew mixed reactions, with some visitors engaging positively after discussion, particularly among students.
As of late May 2026, the display remained open to the public at the parish on West 16th Street.
Image: Fr. Leeper, S.J., as seen with his art work being hosted at Xavier High School.
