When is public art offensive ? 1

 

When is public art offensive  and what should be done with it?

 

Cecil Rhodes by Henry Alfred Pegram, Oriel College Oxford

To be removed: Historical statues that celebrate those who should not be honoured, even for their philanthropy, as that effectively camouflages their execrable careers, as in the cases of slave trader Edward Colston and imperialist Cecil Rhodes.   Removal amplifies rather than erasing history, as re-valuation. 

[censored detail] in Pursuit of Rare Meats by Rex Whistler, restaurant, Tate Britain

To be removed: historical depictions that mock or denigrate people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality.   Currently high on the agenda:  the allegedly ‘witty’ Rare Meats mural by Rex Whistler in the restaurant at Tate Britain, where diminutive African figures in collars and chains are dragged through a pastoral landscape by European women and men on a sporting ‘expedition’ in pursuit of fine foods.  As Diane Abbott MP says, ‘Nobody should be eating surrounded by imagery of black slaves.  The management needs to move the restaurant.’   Tate’s response in the form of an ‘interpretation text’ that ‘addresses this directly as part of our ongoing work to confront such histories’ doesn’t grasp Abbott’s point.  Nobody should eat surrounded by an argument over enslavement.     If the restaurant stays put, the mural needs to ‘move’ permanently out of sight.  The problem of ‘how?’ should not obstruct this.

To be debated: Sculptures that offend or distress members of the public, typically images of nudity or violence.   Is the classical naked woman reclining for (male) visual pleasure so engrained in high art that objections are pointless?  Many communities find it indecent.   What of more explicit works like Courbet’s ‘L’origine du monde’?   would that be on display in the National Gallery as it is in the muse d’Orsay?

Full male nudity is often worse and has been so since decorous figleaves were added to Renaissance statuary.   Often, the intention to shock and offend, as in work by Robert Mapplethorpe, the Chapman brothers, Gilbert & George, is recognised by being carefully curated within museums, rather than openly in public spaces.  

Matthias Grunewald, Crucifixion, Isenheim altarpiece, Colmar

Curiously, ubiquitous figures of torture and crucifixion do not prompt much concern, even though paintings and sculptures of Christ hanging on the cross seem very horrific.  Should they attract warning signs?