The Louvre, one of France's most esteemed museums, is pulling a large art installation after deciding that it was sexually explicit, according to a report by the New York Times published this week.
The large sculpture and installation is known as the "Domestikator," and was created by the Dutch art and design collective Atelier Van Lieshout. In the collective's online site, the large sculpture is described as a "totem, a temple, and a beacon."
Visually the piece features a collection of boxes that are configured in a way that may look like two people engaging in a sexual act. I'll leave it up to you to judge.
The piece was set to appear in The Louvre's Tuileries Garden Oct. 19 but was pulled on the basis that it was sexually explicit. In response, the art collective's founder, Joep van Lieshout, has denounced the Louvre's decision to remove the installation.
He told The New York Times, "This is something that should not happen," adding, "A museum should be an open place for communication. The task of the museum and the press is to explain the work."
"The piece itself, it's not really very explicit," Liechout claims. "There are no genitals; it's pretty innocent."
The Louvre's director, Jean-Luc Martinez, disagreed, writing a letter to organizers claiming that the piece "had a brutal aspect" and "risks being misunderstood by the visitors to the gardens."
Complicating matters was the fact that the piece was located in close proximity to a children's playground.
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