After severe criticism, the Nuremberg Egidienkirche has initially closed the exhibition “Jesus loves” with pictures by the gay painter Rosa von Praunheim, which has been on display since Friday. The church announced on its Facebook page that the church wanted to enter into “a process of clarification”. On Tuesday afternoon, the church council wanted to discuss how to proceed, as the press spokesman for the Nuremberg Deanery, Joachim Baumgardt, said on request.
The reason for the short-term closure of the exhibition is the flood of criticism by email, social media and telephone. Baumgardt said it can be assumed that most of the negative feedback came from people who had not seen the exhibition themselves, but found out about it through media coverage. “The people who were there didn’t express themselves so critically,” said the spokesman.
In addition to critical voices, hate messages can also be found on the church’s social media channels. “Based on the feedback, we feel a duty of care not to use a mode of further provocation,” said Pastor Thomas Zeitler to the Evangelical Press Service.
According to the description of the Egidienkirche, the pictures in the exhibition, which is part of the program of the “Pride Weeks” of the CSD Nuremberg, were all created this year and with a view to the church context in which they are shown. They deal with religion, sexuality, love and death and sometimes show explicit homoerotic and sexual acts. Some of the pictures are behind a curtain with a note saying they are for adults only.
The exhibition wants to deal critically with topics such as abuse in the church, misogyny and queerism. “It’s an important perspective that the exhibition conveys, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it,” said Zeitler.