“Fuck abstraction” definitely caused a lot of ink to flow, and even at the Elysée. This canvas from the Palais de Tokyo, accused of encouraging child pornography and vandalized on Sunday, received support from the head of state himself.
“On this May 8, when we celebrate the victory of freedom, I condemn the act of vandalism committed yesterday at the Palais de Tokyo. To attack a work is to attack our values. In France, art is always free and respect for cultural creation is guaranteed. tweeted Emmanuel Macron.
Representation of rape as a weapon of war
In this work from the Paris museum by Miriam Cahn, we can see, bathed in a certain blur, a muscular and tall man imposing fellatio on a much smaller figure, and holding the head of another, the two having hands tied. For his detractors, the victim is a child, which the artist denies, invoking the representation of rape as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity.
Sunday afternoon, a man described as elderly by a source familiar with the matter projected purple paint on this painting, “dissatisfied with the sexual staging of a child and an adult represented according to him”, without be part of an activist group. The same day, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, denounced the “instrumentalization” of this affair by the National Rally “to stir up controversy and attack the freedom of creation of artists” and without which, according to her, ” we certainly wouldn’t have come to that”.
The Palais de Tokyo for its part specified that it would file a complaint and would continue “to present the painting and the exhibition”, which attracted 80,000 visitors, “with the traces of the degradation until the planned end of the season, May 14.”