Saturday, July 11, 2009

Flash art


We were going to mark this NSFW but as it’s Saturday hopefully none of you are at work. Besides, what’s not to like about artists’ genitals, especially when they are drawn by a Frenchman. Well plenty apparently. Jacques Charlier’s drawings of “artists’ genitalia” were banned in the public space of Venice as part of the Venice Biennale when he wanted to put them up as posters. The penis posters were to be part of an effort supported by the Ministry of Culture and Broadcasting of the French-speaking Community of Belgium and were submitted as a collateral event. The reason for the rejection was that the Biennale officials feared the artists represented might take offence. This was denied by Charlier who said he had been in touch with most of them over the project’s creation. The full collection was made available from 3 to 7 June on a boat moored at the Riva dei Sette Martiri, near the Giardini. You can expose yourself here.
Images: clockwise from top left, Dan Flavin, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons and Carl Andre.