Posted on 11/12/2001 9:45:29 AM PST by jalisco555
BOULDER — A controversial art display featuring 21 brightly colored ceramic penises was stolen Saturday from a domestic violence awareness exhibit at a public library.
The work, entitled "Hanging 'Em Out to Dry," was suspended from a clothesline. Someone removed the penises from the clothesline and replaced them with an American flag and a note with a joking reference to a bandit, city spokeswoman Jennifer Bray said.
The library was criticized this month when officials declined to hang a 10- by 15-foot American flag in the lobby, saying it was too big. A smaller flag was put there instead.
Artist Susanne Walker, who created the work, said the theft contradicts the values symbolized by the flag.
"It makes a joke of the pain and suffering involved in this exhibit. If you want to attack me or my artwork, then confront me with discussion," Walker said in a written statement hung in the gallery Saturday.
Police believe the theft occurred in the morning while the library was open. The exhibit is near an auditorium where a children's performance was held Saturday, and police hope someone might have witnessed the theft.
The exhibit, entitled, "Art Triumphs Over Violence," also includes paintings. It is sponsored by the Boulder County Safehouse, which shelters and supports battered women and children.
Many of the works were done by former abuse victims or their relatives.
The stolen artwork, which became a hot topic on talk radio, was placed in a corner, out of the direct view of people entering the library.
Officials also posted a sign warning people they might be offended by the display.
Is a public library the proper venue for viewing penises?
Doesn't the need for a "warning" call into question such a public display?
It boggels the mind.
Come on now, Chief Inspector, this isn't a subject to dick around with. I mean, we shouldn't get all cocky about it. The library is just continuing President Johnson's tradition of the Great Society. I think that the meat of the argument is that we'd be prudish weenies if we disapproved of the display.
/sarcasm>
Fortunately, the fellow who stole the penises was found and they have been returned. Whew.
Well lady, that already happened and it didn't change a thing.
To whoever did the deed....Two thumbs up!
Live performance art entitled Lesbo69, to benefit ovarian cancer research. May be unsuitable for certain audiences. That's your problem, not ours.
Really? Too bad he didn't take a hammer to it before he was caught. Oh, but then it would have probably been termed a hate crime.
Good riddance of this exhibit.
Or how about a string of ceramic statues of Jesus and the twelve apostles? Or a painting of the 10 commandments.
That's bound to happen when you have a cock-eyed view of the world.
Compare this with the display of the artwork of Columbine students at school. The Jefferson County administrators ordered removed any student art with a religious, particulary Christian, theme. A federal judge recently ruled this a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Instead of replacing the artwork, JeffCo APPEALED with taxpayer money.
So, the position of local authorities in Colorado right now is that displays of the flag are to be avoided because they may "offend" (Boulder), student art reflecting religious feelings in response to Columbine must be removed as violating the First Amendment (Jeffco), but public displays of penises in a public library near childrens' displays is constitutionally protected and the person who took them down is liable for prosecution (Boulder).
In a sane world, the Jeffco administrators would be the ones arrested and the Boulder guy given the keys to the city!
I can imagine the uprising!
Yet their hate-art of severed ceramic penises must be permitted stare down at our children.
War time, or no war time, normal, emotionally balanced, and reasonable Americans can no longer tolerate the left's sick messages to be announced from our public institutions.
My fellow Americans, and that includes tolerant and patriotic lesbians and gays, let's roll on the radical left who are choking our civic life with their pathological agenda of social distintegration.
President Johnson? What unit was that in the text? The same one with Peter, Paul, and Mary? Or the first expedition to the North Pole? I can never keep it straight...perhaps I was reading Longfellow in class that day...
But the people here who are saying these types of things need to be censored/smashed/removed/etc. sound just like the liberals who want Crosses removed from public areas and don't want to see religious symbols anywhere in public.
There are a lot of things I find useless/offensive, whether it be art or speech or whatever. But anytime I start to think about joining the 'ban them/censor them' crowd, I think about the fact that somethings I find tasteful and like a great deal (Nativity scenes, etc.) there are people who want to ban/censor those.
Nobody is forcing anybody to look at this stuff, apparently it was tucked into a corner and had signs around it, so I don't know what the complaints are about - if it was say in front of the county courthouse, I could see a problem.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I thought that the rule of the leftist was that, if it might offend someone, it's a no go. Oh, that's right. It's only if something on our side is offensive to one of them that the rule applies.
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