IRONICALLY, CHRIS OFILI’S LATEST SPONSOR IS BLOOMBERG L.P.

Chris Ofili came to be spoken of as a something of a public enemy by New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani after Ofili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary, adorned with elephant dung, appeared at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999. Now Ofili is representing Britain at the Venice Biennale. In an ironic twist pointed out by the New York Times‘s Michael Cooper, the British pavilion’s sponsor is none other than Bloomberg LP, the company owned by Giuliani’s successor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.