A controversial art installation of two buildings made to look like they are having sex has been pulled from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The 40ft-tall Domestikator, created by a Dutch art collective, was set to take centre stage during the International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) in Paris’ Tuileries Gardens later this month.
However, the invitation has been rescinded, with the director of the Louvre raising concerns that Domestikator had a ‘brutal aspect’.
Controversial: The 40ft ‘Domestikator’ is an art installation showing two buildings having sex, a sculpture that has been rejected by the Louvre
In a letter to FIAC, the director of the Louvre stated that Domestikator could be misunderstood.
‘Online commentaries point out this work has a brutal aspect that may be misunderstood by our traditional audience of the Jardin des Tuileries,’ Jean-Luc Martinez said in the letter quoted by Le Monde.
Mr Martinez also raised concerns that due to its height, the copulating structure could be seen from a nearby children’s playground.
However, the artist Joop Van Lieshout. has slammed Mr Martinez’s concerns as ‘total hypocrisy’.
Risque: Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez also raised concerns that due to its height, the copulating structure could be seen from a nearby children’s playground
Popular: Domestikator is seen in Bochum, Germany, where it’s been on display for three years
The artist said that whole school classes had seen the sculptures during the three years it has been on display in Bochum, Germany.
He said that they had been too young to interpret the sexual nature of Domestikator, and had only seen the funny side.
‘If children see something as sexual, it is because they are old enough to see it,’ he told Le Monde.
Atelier Van Lieshout describes Domestikator as a ‘tribute to the ingenuity, the sophistication and the capacities of humanity, to the power of organisation, and to the use of this power to dominate, domesticate the natural environment.
‘It seeks to address ethical dilemmas of our time like bestiality, production and consumption.’