Posted on 04/18/2011 8:27:59 AM PDT by markomalley
Paris - A group of Christian fundamentalists armed with hammers and screwdrivers destroyed two artworks in an exhibition in the southern French city of Avignon at the weekend, one of which depicted a crucifix immersed in urine, French media reported Monday.
The attack on the photographs of US artist Andres Serrano, which were being shown as part the I Believe in Miracles exhibition of contemporary art followed calls by the local Catholic archbishop for the 'Piss Christ' photograph to be taken down.
The photograph, taken by Serrano in 1987, shows a plastic crucifix wallowing in a glass of the artist's urine. The Christ figure appears to glow in the image, which caused a scandal when it was first exhibited in 1989 and which has since toured the world.
Civitas, a lobby group which says it aims to 're-Christianize France,' called the piece 'sacrilege vis-a-vis God and Catholics' and launched a petition for it to be removed from the exhibition at the residence housing the Yvon Lambert collection.
On Saturday a group of around 500 people shouting Christian slogans demonstrated outside the building, Liberation reported.
The following day four youths wearing sunglasses entered the building and surrounded two security guards stationed in front of the artwork, while others began hacking at it and another of Serrano's photographs, showing a nun meditating.
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand denounced the incident as an 'attack on the freedom of creation.'
While 'recognizing that the (Piss Christ) artwork could shock certain audiences,' Mitterand said 'any act of violence, destruction and intolerance is unacceptable.'
The attack is not the first involving the artwork. A copy of Piss Christ was vandalized at the National Gallery of Victoria in the Australian city of Melbourne in 1997, during a Serrano retrospective.
The Melbourne gallery later cancelled the show.
Eric Mezil, the director of the Lambert collection, said he would leave the shattered artworks hanging so that the public could 'appreciate the barbarity committed by extremists.'
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IT'S ABOUT TIME!!! BRING IT ON!
Good on them... of course the press will call the heathens.. as they close their eyes to the beheading of Islam
Will you give it a rest already.
Ya know I do not much like blasphemy so I will not cry false tears because an “art work” that places my Savior in some man pee.. As for burning the Koran..ask the Army why it burned a case of Bibles.. and amazing no one put a death threat on them ...
Moral standards are not only important, but vital to the survival of human civilization. Only in the last couple of generations have obscenity and pornography become legitimate “expressions”.
For around 200 years of our country, such disgusting offensive filth would never have seen the light of day. Only because of the ACLU and a leftist SCOTUS can such filth be shown legitimately. And of course, this being in France, the same godless, hedonist and atheist agendas have made similar inroads there, to force obscenity and pornography on the public and desensitize the culture.
As someone up above said, “performance art”. They could smear chocolate on their faces first, or wear pink hats, or something.
I had to make sure this wasn’t one of John’s “Semi-Satire” pieces!
Godspeed my fellow Christians.
It’s not artwork.
They done good.
Maybe they took a page out of the Bible.
Aux États-Unis ou au Canada, le mot n'a pas exactement la même connotation qu'en France.[In United States or in Canada, the word does not have exactly the same connotation as in France]
They describe fondamentalisme as a general attitude of absolute certainty, especially in religion, then lists Protestant, Catholic, Islamic and Hindui varieties. For all but Protestant they have a specific to the religion term. Catholic fundamentalism is designated intégrisme, and if you follow the link, describes what we in the Anglosphere would call Catholic Traditionalism.
Good. Do it some more. Christians worldwide could learn something from these people.
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