Sick
ZURICH (Reuters) - A sculpture made with the pickled head of a dead fetus attached to a seagull's body has fueled a furor in Switzerland about the boundaries of art.
Berne's Museum of Fine Arts removed the piece from a Chinese art exhibition earlier this month after a complaint that it was disrespectful to the dead, and following concerns its grisly appearance might traumatize visiting schoolchildren.
The piece, named "Ruan," stole headlines in Swiss newspapers when artist Xiao Yu confirmed that the fetus head was real.
Now the museum's management will decide next week whether to reinstate the work, which sits pickled in a jar of formaldehyde.
"As a result of the complaint it was taken out of the exhibition with the proviso that there would be a debate about the boundaries of art," museum spokeswoman Ruth Gilgen said.
Earlier this week, ethics experts, artists and art lovers argued at a conference in Berne that keeping the work under wraps was an affront to freedom of expression.
Swiss journalist Adrien de Riedmatten, who lodged the complaint, had demanded to know where the head came from.
"The complaint was not about restricting artistic freedom but rather about where this fetus had come from and how the artist found it," Gilgen said.
She said the head had belonged to a fetus conceived sometime in the early 1960s. It was later a museum exhibit.
"It had formed part of an exhibition in formaldehyde in Peking," Gilgen said. "When that came to be renewed, it fell into the hands of the artist." [Source]
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"Earlier this week, ethics experts, artists and art lovers argued at a conference in Berne that keeping the work under wraps was an affront to freedom of expression."
Why is everyone always so concerned with freedom to do sick things like this? What is the value in that? When someone can do something like this and call it art... Or, for instance, when someone can make a picture of Our Lady, cover it with pornographic images and smear it with excrement, and call it art... Why can't people see that something is terribly wrong? Art should be edifying, not nauseating.
Anthony: Don't you know that the First Commandment in the contemporary art is world is "Thou Shalt Give the Finger to Piddling 'Middle Class' Morality (aka 'Common Decency') Whenever Possible." The Second Commandment is "Thou Shalt Always Defend The Artist's Right to 'Free Artistic Expression'."
Except of course, when the artist is Mel Gibson.
That is pretty sick, the artist is nuts really, but that isnt what bothers me,what bothers me is that it got into a museum! And to call it art? The line needs to be drawn somewhere and if it is not drawn at "disrespect" then where?
I have never heard of the pornography incident with Our Lady, but that is another time when the line should have been drawn at "disrespect".
These so called "artists" just use the word "Art" as an excuse for their warped thoughts.
Who are these "ethics experts"?
Ethics experts are those people with standards and who probably care about life and have respect for others religions and life choices. If there is no line then there are no ethics.
This is not art. It is nothing more than the stuff of P.T. Barnum. What talent is on display in this? When "artists" showcase work whose function is to provoke horror and disgust, I'm of the belief what they are really showcasing is their gigantic arrogance, to which I say... yawn. How many body parts in toilets, reconfigured junkyard items showed as sculpture before the art community has said, "Enough." The emporer has no clothes.