Protests against Olympic art show in Athens
The "Outlook" contemporary art exhibition in Athens, part of the "cultural olympiad" leading up to to next year's Olympic games, has been beseiged by protests and vandalism.
Incident #1: Far-right politician Giorgos Karatzaferis visited the exhibition and called one of the paintings, Asperges Me (Dry Sin) by Thierry de Cordier, "the most obscene, immoral, shameless painting I had ever seen." Asperges Me depicts an erect penis on the left and a crucifix dripping with semen on the right. Making things worse, said Karatzaferis, "the penis, that thing, looked circumcised." Other politicians and religious groups jumped on the denunciation bandwagon, and the exbition organizers removed the work.
Shameless is right — shamelessly trying to get his name in the papers with such blatant fundi-bait. This game stopped being funny years ago; it's just too easy. Then again, maybe the artist was sincere. There are Christian speed metal bands, so why not Christian bukkake?
Incident #2: A few days later, a woman tore a photograph by Thanassis Tsotsikas off the gallery wall, then waited patiently for the guards. Kathimerini notes, "Her conservative dress suggested she was a member of a church organization." Police gave her a ticket and released her. The untitled photograph showed Tsotsikas fucking a watermelon.
Incident #3: Later that day, another woman — "also dressed in Orthodox-mandated black," according to the Guardian — ran into the exhibition shouting "it's obscene!" and tried to deface a nude sketch by Raymond Pettibon, but guards stopped her.
CIRCA reports that "ever since, the exhibition's organisers have been inundated by threats against the art and the 'people who put them there'." The Guardian adds, "Last night [Saturday, Dec 14], the exhibits were being protected by armed guards, following yet more threats to 'take down the penises'." Unfortunately, I can't find pictures of the offending works online.
