A collage of lesbian pornography at the Metropolitan Opera makes us question the boundaries between Art and smut. It would’ve been cause for scandal if any one of the girl-on-girl images contained within the painting in question had been arbitrarily taped to a wall, but situated within the setting of The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, Richard Prince’s Madame Butterfly takes on more significant meaning.

The painting exists to shock the viewer. According to curator Dodie Kazanjian, Richard Prince—an artist already known for his rather explicit photographs—was specifically selected as one of the artists who could “bring highly idiosyncratic and challenging perspectives to the exhibition.”

Prince was commissioned “to capture on canvas the operas being given new productions, with a focus on their heroines.” His portrayal of Madame Butterfly engaged in various sapphic acts certainly challenges preconceived ideas of the Japanese geisha who killed herself after discovering her American husband had married an American woman.

“I went to the opera. It was Madame Butterfly. I fell asleep. When I woke up the music was by Klaus Nomi and Cio Cio San had turned into a lesbian and refused to commit suicide. It was a German ending,” state the block letters (in the typical fashion of Prince’s joke paintings) superimposed over the photographic montage. Like David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, Prince’s Madame Butterfly uses homosexuality to confront race and gender stereotypes. As a lesbian, Prince’s leading lady rejects expectations of her to be a sex object designed to please men, which in the opera was her calling as first, a geisha, and then, a wife. Prince’s heroine choses life in both a physical (she “refused to commit suicide”) and social (her mental state is not destroyed by ill-requited love) sense. Although the painting is orderly—rows of equal-sized photographs all in black-and-white—its message deconstructs the mysogyny of “the most often-performed opera in North America.”

While Prince’s painting is the most overtly sexual contribution to the exhibit, it’s perhaps not as problematic as Wangechi Mutu’s Love’s a Witch, Orfeo’s Underworld Coronation for Euridice. The heroine’s body is desmembered. Barbie-like legs explode across the canvas. At least John Currin’s Helena looks like she’s in the throes of passion.

Some patrons have been so disturbed by the graphic content at the Gallery Met that they’ve walked right out. The good news for those who don’t blush so easily is that you don’t have to have a ticket to the opera to visit the gallery. It’s free and open as late as 11 PM, through this Saturday, May 12. And, if you do go to see an opera, don’t be surprised to find that they are oftten as sex-tinged as the heroine paintings. After all, what do you think inspired the artists?