Exhibition "LOLita" in Cologne - Is this Art? Does she have to go?

The Cologne Ebertplatz is not a place for children. The concrete plant stinks of urine, in the underpasses of the square meet drug dealers and addicts. The authorities have been trying for years to positive changes, but it came last weekend to a stabbing, a man bleeding to death.

Ironically, here in one of the subterranean passages of Ebertplatz, a Feuilletondbatte is negotiated in the next few days - the question of whether and whose nudity in art may be considered pornographic.

In the Gold + Beton project gallery, five artists show themselves naked as babies or toddlers: an infant is being lifted out of the bathtub. A naked toddler climbs in a beach chair. And a girl dressed only in the upper body is laughing on a stubble field. Next to it are current works that were created from the old children's photos.

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8 pictures

"At that time, I was completely free with my nakedness," says London-based artist Nural Moser. She developed the video work "FRAGILE - WARNING: DO NOT COVER" based on her mother's holiday snapshot. "Then puberty and stigma came in. I have a female body - why must I hide it? Why does society find my breasts offensive while violence and hatred are accepted?" The Frankfurt-based artist Il-Jin Atem Choi describes his work as a "sculpture in bar table aesthetics", on whose surface his stylized baby face is recognizable. Maybe a few beer bottles will be put on it in the next few days, Choi suggests.

Protests as a welcome stimulus

The Frankfurter Kollektiv Frankfurter Hauptschule, a fraternal association of students from the environment of the Städelschule, who regularly throw off conflicts for "pedagogical reasons", encourages the exhibition "LOLita" on dealing with nudity in art. Currently, the group is raving about political correctness that hits on art.

Almost always there are current art debates about the representation of sexuality, almost always come demands not to show this or that picture: When last year the Swiss Fondation Beyeler designed an exhibition by the painter Balthus, she had to broaden her mediation program. Because the artist is repeatedly accused of having painted schoolgirl pornography. In New York, more than 10,000 outraged citizens demanded that his painting "Thérèse, dreaming" should disappear from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, because the panty of the portrayed girl can be seen on it.

Did the protesters confuse art with advertising? The exhibition of a picture as a propaganda of the depicted misinterpreted? Art unfolds its effect just when it is uncomfortable and intimate - so today it is more about the Irritieren distribute around the heart, Likes and Dislikes?

The fact that the Balthus works are not pedophile in Basel tried to explain an Ask-Me person , who stood for the time of the exhibition next to the "Thérèse" pictures. "Anyone who expresses a problem with a work should not simply be given a blanket answer that this is just art," curator Raphael Bouvier explained to the art magazine "Monopol" at that time. Sensitivity has increased with such topics, but he does not feel that this is an attack but an interesting phenomenon. It would just be the context in which a discussion arises.

"Hypocritical philistine morals", however, complain the artists of the action circle Frankfurter Hauptschule. "If a work of art shows a naked child - is the work of art pedophile, or are the thoughts of the beholder?", A spokesman formulates. "If someone gets scared of their own fantasies, that's not the problem of art."

Do Facebook and Instagram affect the reception?

Artist Nural Moser believes the problem is compounded by social media. "If only one person on Instagram does not like a picture, and the picture does not conform to the guidelines, it will be deleted." For example, women's shirtless bodies are frowned upon - those of men are accepted, where does the platform have the right to determine what exactly that one is there is a social stigma, and people get used to it, "says Moser.

The painting "Origin of the World" by Gustave Courbet is also a centuries-old provocation - it shows a naturalistic image of a female abdomen, a naked sex. Facebook deleted a post on which it was seen and acted in accordance with the Terms of Use. A Parisian teacher led a process because of this and lost him.

But a little later, visitors to the Berlin Gemäldegalerie demanded in a letter of protest the suspension of a Caraveggio painting, because on "Cupid as Victor" a penis can be seen - that indeed serves "the excitement of the beholder". Courbet and Caraveggio have been hanging in museums for ages. Does the social media user carry the internalized moral of his favorite platform out of the bubble into the museum? And must it be taken into account?

No, says the Berlin historian Ute Frevert. She believes that if you remove all the works of art that disturbed our present sensibilities from the museums, they will soon be empty. Nevertheless, it is important to discuss works of art and to bring new readings.

The Frankfurt Hauptschule students assume that the culture of outrage is more calculated than ignorance. "People are stupid and are just getting up to get attention, we find this hypocrisy nasty." With the exhibition in Cologne we want to tickle people now and see what comes out. "

Exhibition : LOLita, Gallery Gold + Beton Cologne, until 3 September