Scorn
This is from an Evening Standard article from 2012.There were no complaints from the public when a Mayfair gallery exhibited a dramatic modern rendering of the ancient Greek myth of Leda and the swan in its window.
But the sensitive souls of the Metropolitan Police took a different view when they spotted Derrick Santini’s photograph of a naked woman being ravished by the bird.
An officer took exception as he passed the Scream gallery in Bruton Street on a bus. He alerted colleagues and two uniformed officers from Harrow arrived to demand the work be removed.
Jag Mehta, sales director at the gallery owned by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’s sons Tyrone and Jamie, said: “We asked them what the problem was and they said it suggested we condoned bestiality, which they said was an arrestable offence. The show, Metamorphosis, had been running for a month and was really well received.”
“They didn’t know anything about the myth. They stood there and didn’t leave until we took the piece down. They asked us whether we had had complaints and we said quite the contrary. Lots of people were intrigued by it.”
Here's the photograph those pearl-clutching policemen identified as bestiality.
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| Pictured: not bestiality |
And another article about the same incident, from Telegraph UK had additional quotes from the sales director.
“They said the photograph suggested we condoned bestiality, which was an arrestable offence,” she said. “It’s crazy. Perhaps the cultural references were lost on them.”
“It was not meant to deliberately shock or offend. However, the purpose of art is to provoke debate and Derrick’s piece has certainly done this.”
Oh for fuck's sake.
Just because something is old, doesn't make it not what it is.
I've got an idea! We can render the same treatment to another serial rapist, raping one of his many many many victims! But an older one because then it's okay. Howabout the Butcher of Hanover? He raped all sorts of people! We can pick one and make it sexy oo la la.
Artists can reimagine his abduction and rape of 10-year-old Friedrich Abeling. I can see it now; the Butcher, while dumping the dismembered body of 17-year-old Fritz Wittig into the Leine, sees young Friedrich, cheekily ditching school to skips stones at the river. The Butcher is stunned with Friedrich's beauty, and seduces him by pretending to be injured beneath a secluded bridge. The alluring Friedrich approaches, ensuring that this scenario can forever be depicted as a consensual sexual encounter, and The Butcher savagely
The Leine is dappled with lustrous flowers and dancing cherubs, symbolizing the restrained eroticism of the narrative. Beneath the canopy of the bridge, hanging wisteria curtains cocoon the couple in their fragrant intimacy. The Butcher, his
Scholars dispute whether The Butcher raped and ate young Friedrich's corpse, or if he merely kept his severed, shattered head as a keepsake of the whirlwind romance.
Oh sorry, was that gross? Gross like being raped by an animal and bearing its children? Gross like taking something inherently horrific and making it sexy?
Uneducated, ignorant, knuckle-dragging police officers came into a gallery owned by some very rich, high-status people today and demanded the gallery remove a 10'x10' oil painting of the ancient historical story of Freidrich and The Butcher today, which no one has ever complained about ever because this gallery is patronized by well-educated people, thank you very much.
These buffoonish, mouth-breathing officers of the law knew absolutely nothing of the culture behind this piece of very expensive art. The curator was shocked and confused; for what reason must it be taken down?
"For distributing child pornography," they told her, "which is an arrestable offense." The show has been running for a month and has been very well received by everyone, everywhere.
"The very established and valid cultural significance of this piece just zoomed right over the heads of these low-brow philistines," said the curator, "Observe the exquisitely delicate, almost frangible rendering of Freidrich's naked, prepubescent body being ravaged by the much larger, looming body of The Butcher. The symbolism of Fredrich's later dismemberment is apparent. And here we see the sheen of ecstasy on the face of The Butcher, just moments before he concludes their lovemaking with a passionate, extremely fatal bite to the child's neck. That these vulgar neanderthals couldn't grasp the obvious consent in Freidrich's glassy stare, nor the totally obvious to everyone fact that historical pedophilia doesn't count, caught me by utter surprise. Nobody would ever find this pornographic. It is erotic."
The boorish swine were not swayed by the argument that raping children has been historically acceptable in many cultures.
"Well gosh, I never did mean for anyone, including myself, to masturbate furiously to this image of a sexy little boy being raped,- excuse me, ravaged by a much older man." said the artist, "It is meant to provoke debate."
"About what?" asked an incredulous, ill-bred officer.
"If you have to ask you'll never know." sniffed the artist, crossing his arms.
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