Gay Artist Burns Rare $60,000.00 Koran
Last Update: 7:50 AM ET Jul 26, 2007
NEW YORK, July 26, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Charles Merrill, the artist who recently edited the Holy Bible with a black marker and pair of scissors, has lately burned a rare Islamic Holy Book, The Koran, valued at $60,000.00, in an undisclosed Chicago location. "The purpose of editing and burning Abrahamic Holy Books is to eliminate homophobic hate," Merrill stated. "Both ancient books are terrorist manuals."
He continues, "I inherited the rare Islamic book from my late wife, Evangeline Johnson Merrill. As the daughter of the founder of the international pharmaceutical giant, Johnson and Johnson, Inc., doors of kings and queens opened to her around the world. Evangeline was given the rare manuscript by the late King of Jordan when she was on a mission for the United Nations in the 1950's."
"Airplanes are flown into buildings because of words, and hate crimes against gays," Merrill said.
Merrill is a self-made millionaire, artist, fervent atheist and cousin of the co-founder of Merrill Lynch.
Broadway Gallery is pleased to present Charles Merrill, artist, gay activist and iconoclast. Merrill's exhibition incorporates themes of LGBT activism and the spiritual customs associated with indigenous cultures in his work.
Using boldly colored acrylic and oil paint on large canvases, many are geometric compositions with recurring motifs of triangles, circles, lines, and arrows. The upside-down pink triangles in his work originate from a sinister source -- it was the emblem that gays had to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
Notably, another form of Merrill's activism is his altruism. All proceeds from works sold at his show at Broadway Gallery benefit the Williams Institute UCLA Sexual Orientation Legal Think Tank. Merrill wants "to make social change, educate, to leave the world a better place for the next generation of oppressed people."
Gay Artist Burns Rare $60,000.00 Koran
