2023-05-08 10:29:02
The painting “Fuck abstraction!”, by artist Miriam Cahn, has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo since February. Associations judge that it represents a child undergoing a rape, while the museum and the artist affirm that it is about an adult and that the work wants to denounce the crimes committed in the zones of conflict.
The painting continues to make people talk. A work by Swiss artist Miriam Cahn, exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo since mid-February, was sprayed with paint by an individual who acted alone on Sunday. The controversies that surrounded his exhibition seem to be at the center of this act.
Entitled “Fuck abstraction!”, the painting is part of a retrospective devoted to the artist’s work. For l’association Children’s lawyers, it represents “a man imposing fellatio on a child”. For the artist and the contemporary art centerit shows “an adult person with tied hands, forced to perform fellatio” and “aims to denounce these barbaric acts” in a context of war.
The act of vandalism committed this Sunday even drew the attention of Emmanuel Macron, and especially his condemnation, in a tweet published on Monday.
“To attack a work is to attack our values. In France, art is always free and respect for cultural creation is guaranteed,” he said.
A mediation system to support visitors
From March 7, the museum said it was “aware” of what “the artistic representation of violence can generate as misunderstandings”. He had set up a mediation system around the exhibition and the painting (warning messages, explanatory text, mediators near the work, etc.).
On March 17, the deputy of the National Rally Caroline Parmentier had denounced in a tweet a board showing “a child crime scene” and asked that it be taken down. Two days later, the association Juristes pour l’Enfance had made the same request via a communiqué, before seizing the judge in chambers of the administrative court of Paris. In particular, she believes that here, painting “serves as a pretext to trivialize the culture of child rape”.
“The excuse invoked of a real or supposed intention to denounce it in no way justifies the dissemination of child pornography scenes”, affirms association for the defense of children’s rights.
The Council of State rejects the associations’ request
His request for withdrawal having been rejected, four other child protection associations joined the procedure and brought the case before the Council of State.
In a decision issued on April 14, France’s highest administrative court ruled that the elements put in place by the museum to warn visitors and put the painting in context – the denunciation of crimes committed in conflict zones – were sufficient. .
“The hanging of this painting in a place dedicated to contemporary creation and known as such, and accompanied by a detailed contextualization, does not seriously and manifestly illegally undermine the best interests of the child or to the dignity of the human person”, is it also written in decision of the Council of State.
The support of several personalities and organizations
In a column published in The world on April 8, 26 heads of museums and cultural institutions affirmed that “a museum cannot be reduced to a place presenting works intended to rest the gaze, entertain and instagrammer”.
“Any work is by nature disturbing because it shows the real or imaginary world in a different light,” they added, highlighting their own role in “making audiences want to come and contextualize the presentation of the works”.
The Observatory of Creative Freedom also provided support to Miriam Cahn and the Palais de Tokyo in a statement published at the end of March. The collective of associations and unions explained that “everyone is free to interpret the work as they see fit”, but that “take it out of its exhibition context, distribute it by giving it a particular interpretation (contrary intended for the artist who affirms that the characters are all adults), and to ask for his removal, is pure instrumentalization”.
A petition and a letter to the administrators of the Palais de Tokyo
The associations opposed to the painting did not stop there and sent on May 2 a letter to “members, administrators and friends of the Palais de Tokyo”. The 16 associations behind the letter are still asking for the painting to be taken down, the exhibition of which ends on May 14, as a “symbolic measure to preserve childhood”. A online petition going in this direction was also signed by 14,000 people.
The man who threw paint on the work this Sunday was “unhappy with the sexual staging of a child and an adult represented according to him on this painting” but he is not part of an activist group , learned AFP from a source familiar with the matter.
He “was immediately apprehended by security agents (…) and taken away by the police”, said the Palais de Tokyo, which “will file a complaint for damage to property and obstruction of freedom of expression”.
The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, ruled on Sunday that “the National Rally instrumentalized this painting to stir up controversy and attack the freedom of creation of artists”, in reference to the involvement of MP Caroline Parmentier in this affair. . “Without this instrumentalization by the RN, we certainly would not have come to this,” she said.
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