British art museum removes a famous 1869 painting of Femme Fatale nymphs

I may have been less than clear, as you seem to have missed my point.

Of course I’m not comparing this singular act of removing a painting directly to Naziism. That would be silly and unnecessarily hyperbolic. What I’m doing, and what a lot of people in the thread were doing was to point out the end destination of the road that this small act of petty political prudishness puts us on.

Also, I accept that a really strong push back against a small incident like this may have looked a little silly, but had there not been such a strong reaction, that painting would be gone, and we’d be one more salami slice down the first paragraph of Faranheit 451. Then next time, they’ll push a little bit further.

So I don’t mind if people think I’m overreacting now, because history has taught us that if we ignore petty regressiveness like this, if we ignore baby steps on this road , and only start to complain when we reach repressive totalitarian acts, well, that’s too late to do anything about it.

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So much this!

Yeah… it’s a little cheap. And, everybody in this thread are getting the point wrong, almost.
It’s not at all a bad point to try and make though.

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This is all being reported badly. If you follow the various links, you find the museum’s contemporary art curator saying the painting is most probably going to be returned to its former spot. The whole thing is temporary, and being done as a piece of site-specific performance art. Yet it’s being reported in the media in terms that are just vague enough to incite FEMINISM RUN AMOK! reactions. So I’d say that the experiment that this stunt is performing is a success — in the sense that no one is being allowed to see clearly just what it is. The painting’s erasure has itself been erased.

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It seems implicit in Marks post to me.

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Yes, “person drowns in the river”. Must have been the nymphs.

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Perhaps it should be displayed in a special room which you can only access on request after you explain yourself to a puritan elder sir or madam and sign a paper that you have no concern about the vileness of what it represents.

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Nipple-less breasts?

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It’s obvious they were driving trollies, and since no one is capable of not feeding trollies anymore this happened.

At least the number of people who know what satyrs and nymphs are quintupled overnight.

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When the Beatles’ “run for your life” came under fire, no one was suggesting we keep playing it on the radio in order to continue the conversation. Just because something is old, and/or “classic” doesn’t mean it should get top billing. If people wanted to burn this piece, I’d worry about censorship. Taking it off the wall temporarily doesn’t sound any alarm bells for me, it’s a reflection of changing taste.

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You can buy Rubber Soul today. If you dig down into your wallet, you can even buy it in mono.

And you’d be hard pressed to argue that the version you can buy was merely a simulacrum of the real thing-- the Beatles even quit touring to focus on their studio work.

whereas the original of a painting is qualitatively different from seing it in a book or on your computer screen. At least this one is not terribly large

I’m about to drown myself in a river…

In referencing a memorial plaque for the actual 1933 Nazi book burnings, well, yeah. That is exactly the hyperbole you tried to avoid.

But what happened to feminism being about equality before the law and in business and in daily life, and less focused on iconoclasm and language policing everybody who did not major in gender studies. In all other fields of politics and society we tend to distinguish between reasonable, rational demands, and runaway extremism by fringe groups, who make up in volume what they lack in general appeal. Maybe it is about time to apply this basic common sense to feminism. But that’s probably my white male privilege talking. And one does tend to get flagged for remarks like this on liberal sites like BB, but I would rather gnaw my mouse hand of than to take it to the “men’s rights” dipshits :nauseated_face:, even if they would probably applaud the thought. reading that again, it doesn’t feel right, in particular the part inviting “common sense”.

Not too proud of the “what happened to” either, because for those who can read, there’s tons of literature on how we got here.

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Don’t do it. You have so much to live for… I guess

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1 Like. Maybe an ocean would be better.

The stunt was filmed as part of a new artwork by Sonia Boyce, who is exploring “gender trouble” in the paintings and wider culture of the 19th century.

So, have we now disposed of all the problematic things of the 21st century, then???

common sense is hegemony’s handmaiden.1

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Different artist, different story, but too good to pass up. :blush:

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If they can do this, can they now remove every Jeff Koons work?

Please?

Now that the Manchester Art Gallery has officially sanctioned and encouraged sticky notes and Twitter hashtags as the preferred mode of feedback, a tantalizing prospect arises—that guests will express themselves about EVERYTHING in the museum, playfully and harmlessly. Let the conversation begin!

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The collection of the Manchester Art Gallery has pieces that could have been a lot more appropriate for the #MeToo discussion. One example is this Susannah and the elders. Then, it also has pieces that would prompt a good discussion of what is art and what it is not, like this other example.

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