Last week's "Passion of Kim Kardashian" art exhibit in Brooklyn was met with derision and confusion.
The one-day showing featured photoshopped collages of Kim Kardashian as Jesus, Mary, nuns, a Hindu god, Joan of Arc, and a satanic priestess. The artist, Hannah Kunkle, thought the outcry of her work was "hilarious."
"I'm sorry if that offends them, but that's really not my purpose," she told the New York Daily News. "It's art. It's supposed to be wild and, not offensive, but prying."
The Kardashian as Jesus collage features Kim wearing a crown of thorns and a halo, with praying hands, a cross, lambs, doves, and other religious iconography around her. The Madonna collage has the reality star in a blue mantle with a white garment and a halo over her head. Crosses and praying hands fill another collage that depicts a trio of Kim's in nun's habits.
Pastor Reggie Stutzman of Real Life Church in the Bronx called the images "deplorable."
"Leave Kim and Jesus separate," he told the New York Daily News. "It's deplorable. It's sacrilegious, irrelevant, and disrespectful... It's idol worship."
Kunkle, 23, admitted that she is "strangely fascinated" with the socialite.
"I think she is almost a patron saint of pop culture," she told the Daily News. "She's everywhere."
In an April interview, she went beyond statements of admiration.
"Kim Kardashian is God," she told VICE.
"Kim floats above us all, even the deniers and the haters. We have accepted her into our lives via television screens, memes, and Instagram feeds. If Jay-Z is the father and Yeezus is the son, then she is the ever-present holy ghost of pop culture."
Rapper Jay-Z has referred to himself as "Jay-Hova" or "Hova" – his take on "Jehovah." He has also called himself the "God MC."
Kardashian's husband, Kanye West, named his latest album "Yeezus"—a combination of his nickname, "Yeezy," and "Jesus." The album also features a song called "I Am a God."
Kim's camp has not commented on "The Passion of Kim Kardashian."
