SHOCK OF THE NUDE
No one was more 'shocked' than me to see my artwork from the exhibition 'The Puma, the Stranger and The Mountain' making The Age headlines on the posters outside the milk-bars on Sunday the 11th May 2008. Many people said: Oh, but isn’t that what every artist dream of, a scandal? Well, I tell you what, this period was very stressful for me! I did not see this reaction coming and regardless what we can think about censorship, the whole situation was badly handled by journalists. However, now many months after, all I can say is that it was nice to see that art actually can make it to the headlines… I suppose there must have been a shortage of war and football players on this Sunday!
/Cecilia Fogelberg
/Cecilia Fogelberg
THE AGE - 11 MAY 2008
The Age article: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/10/1210131335180.html
A PHOTOGRAPH of a man wearing only a hand-stitched Mickey Mouse balaclava has proved too much for the City of Melbourne to bear. In a move condemned as arts censorship, the full-frontal nude caused such consternation within the council that it blackened out the image for a forthcoming festival.
At its request, black shrouds were last week draped over the series of nine photographs, which also feature a naked male model wearing balaclavas resembling E.T. and Santa Claus, which were part of an exhibition in Melbourne's Degraves Street subway.
The decision was taken after an initial request from the council, which co-owns the space, to cover the offending appendages in little black stickers was rejected by Swedish-born artist Cecilia Fogelberg.
She told The Sunday Age the stickers would have drawn unwanted attention to the genitals of Melbourne model Mitch Jones. The photographs, which she took in her East Brunswick backyard on a chill afternoon last month, were not meant to be sexual or sensual, she said.
"It is like we are living in the Dark Ages. My father called from Sweden yesterday and jokingly said 'do you want a one-way ticket out of there?'," she said. "It seems like nudity is so sexually charged in Australia whereas there is a more open acceptance to the nude body in Sweden."
The photographs were part of an exhibition on cultural identity for the Next Wave Festival, which starts on Thursday. The festival is sponsored by the City of Melbourne, whose officers controversially tore down explicit posters for an exhibition titled C---s in February.
Councillor David Wilson, chairman of the community services portfolio, which includes arts and culture, said the council censored Fogelberg's photographs after a complaint from one of the thousands of people who use the public thoroughfare each day.
But he maintained the majority of people did not want to be exposed to full-frontal nudity in public. "Nothing's wrong with genitals; it's what we consider acceptable out in the public space," he said.
"There's nothing wrong with sex, either, but we don't go around showing movies in Federation Square with scenes of people having sex."
He said the photographs would be unveiled briefly on May 30 at 5pm for a public discussion on whether such artworks should be shown uncensored.
The exhibition's curator, Din Heagney, the director of Platform Artists Group, said the unveiling was akin to a peep show. "I find it amazing that in 2008 a male nude is offensive in public when all you have to do is turn on the television and look at advertising to see there are a lot more sexual references that are designed to incite desire in a product," he said.
He said full-frontal sketches and sculptures of naked women had previously been shown in the subway's cabinets without complaint.
Melbourne's most famous nude model, Chloe, hangs aloof on the wall of Young & Jackson Hotel, less than 100 metres away. Full-frontal male and female nudes are also on show at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Museum.
Melbourne International Arts Festival director, Kristy Edmunds, said the council was being prudish. But she said showing full-frontal nudity in a public space, as opposed to inside a commercial gallery, was like waving "a red rag in front of a bull".
A PHOTOGRAPH of a man wearing only a hand-stitched Mickey Mouse balaclava has proved too much for the City of Melbourne to bear. In a move condemned as arts censorship, the full-frontal nude caused such consternation within the council that it blackened out the image for a forthcoming festival.
At its request, black shrouds were last week draped over the series of nine photographs, which also feature a naked male model wearing balaclavas resembling E.T. and Santa Claus, which were part of an exhibition in Melbourne's Degraves Street subway.
The decision was taken after an initial request from the council, which co-owns the space, to cover the offending appendages in little black stickers was rejected by Swedish-born artist Cecilia Fogelberg.
She told The Sunday Age the stickers would have drawn unwanted attention to the genitals of Melbourne model Mitch Jones. The photographs, which she took in her East Brunswick backyard on a chill afternoon last month, were not meant to be sexual or sensual, she said.
"It is like we are living in the Dark Ages. My father called from Sweden yesterday and jokingly said 'do you want a one-way ticket out of there?'," she said. "It seems like nudity is so sexually charged in Australia whereas there is a more open acceptance to the nude body in Sweden."
The photographs were part of an exhibition on cultural identity for the Next Wave Festival, which starts on Thursday. The festival is sponsored by the City of Melbourne, whose officers controversially tore down explicit posters for an exhibition titled C---s in February.
Councillor David Wilson, chairman of the community services portfolio, which includes arts and culture, said the council censored Fogelberg's photographs after a complaint from one of the thousands of people who use the public thoroughfare each day.
But he maintained the majority of people did not want to be exposed to full-frontal nudity in public. "Nothing's wrong with genitals; it's what we consider acceptable out in the public space," he said.
"There's nothing wrong with sex, either, but we don't go around showing movies in Federation Square with scenes of people having sex."
He said the photographs would be unveiled briefly on May 30 at 5pm for a public discussion on whether such artworks should be shown uncensored.
The exhibition's curator, Din Heagney, the director of Platform Artists Group, said the unveiling was akin to a peep show. "I find it amazing that in 2008 a male nude is offensive in public when all you have to do is turn on the television and look at advertising to see there are a lot more sexual references that are designed to incite desire in a product," he said.
He said full-frontal sketches and sculptures of naked women had previously been shown in the subway's cabinets without complaint.
Melbourne's most famous nude model, Chloe, hangs aloof on the wall of Young & Jackson Hotel, less than 100 metres away. Full-frontal male and female nudes are also on show at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Museum.
Melbourne International Arts Festival director, Kristy Edmunds, said the council was being prudish. But she said showing full-frontal nudity in a public space, as opposed to inside a commercial gallery, was like waving "a red rag in front of a bull".