7. Chris Ofili’s Virgin Mary
The man who brought elephant dung to the art world created a Virgin Mary, surrounded by pictures of female genitals from pornographic magazines. It was removed from the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s ‘Sensation’ exhibition in 1999 after Rudy Giuliani, then Mayor, threatened to withdraw the $7m City Hall grant from the museum.


Vulgarity: 6 Criminality: 0 Religious impact: 5 Political Impact: 8 Deaths: 0