Posted on 05/25/2005 6:25:00 AM PDT by Dashing Dasher
ZURICH (Reuters) - A giant dominatrix teddy bear wearing a leather mask and brandishing hand-cuffs has been banned from sober Zurich's street display of man-sized model bears, the project's artistic director said Tuesday.
While tourists pose for snaps next to a brightly-painted and benign array of models such as the "schoolteacher bear" and the "skier bear," "Baervers" -- a pun on the German for perverse -- has been deemed too steamy for the financial capital's streets.
"This bear is perverse, dominatrix and hardcore. We had to ban it because of the children," Beat Seeberger-Quin, the project's art director, told Reuters.
The offending bear, which sports bright red lipstick, a corset and thigh-length leather boots, stands atop a pedestal bearing the words "first class service."
Some 600 teddies, variously decorated by artists, stud the streets of Zurich and its airport in the "Teddy-Summer" project.
The controversial model had been allocated a place near Zurich's Paradeplatz, home to Switzerland's top banks such as Credit Suisse and UBS, before Seeberger-Quin spotted the final design and decided to ban it.
The dominatrix bear's creators now seek a private home for their sadomasochist teddy. At least "Baervers" will not face the same hazards as his publicly-displayed peers, some of which have been vandalized or even kidnapped.
"Two or three of the bears have been splashed with paint, and one bear -- a nice small bear wearing a little dress -- has been stolen," Seeberger-Quin said.
"And then they came for the bears, but I wasn't a bear so I did nothing..."
Arte who?
,,, Art - a guy with no arms and no legs, hanging on the wall.
its a mystery!
Now that's art!
LOL!!!
Must protect the bears!
Oh, it was wonderful. I had some jars I couldn't open the lids on, some plumbing work to be done under the sink, a creaky floorboard and my assigned vehicle was making a funny noise - they fixed it all!
They're welcome back any time. ;-)
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