Banksy's "Christ With Shopping Bags," 2004

Yesterday is  Easter, and to mark the most miraculous occurrence in Jesus's history we have assembled a selection of ten contemporary artworks addressing the Christian savior's iconography — sometimes provocatively, nearly always controversially. Why?

The past year has seen an efflorescence of attacks on unorthodox depictions of Jesus, with violent acts of vandalism occurring in Avignon and Colorado and a right-wing campaign against an innocent, misinterpreted image of ants crawling on a crucifix in D.C. What is continually overlooked in these instances is that the artists behind these works are quite often Christian themselves. Some use religious imagery to propose searching questions in a rawly honest, visceral way that is encouraged within the art world but often rejected by the world at large. Some are just out to stir up a ruckus, or out for a laugh.

The artists whose work include gay men taking on a faith that often turns away from them, an anxiety-wracked alcoholic, and a religious Christian who uses his camera to tease out beatific images from even the basest materials. Then, of course, there are the outright provocateurs, like Banksy — though even there the point is about how the sacred has become profaned by modern society. Regardless, this art is worth surveying, if for no other reason than to remember that the holidays not just Easter Egg hunts, but something that stirs up real passion.