The painting
“Fuck Abstraction!”
by Miriam Cahn, exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, was degraded in the afternoon of Sunday May 7, informs France Info.
Part of the painting has been sprayed with purple paint.
The individual suspected of being at the origin of this degradation is an "
older man
", according to France Info, and was arrested by the security agents of the Palais de Tokyo, then handed over to the police.
He would have concealed the painting in a bottle of medicine, indicated the Parisian contemporary art center, relayed by our colleagues.
The action has not yet been claimed.
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Since then, the museum has
“closed the room to the public while waiting to see the follow-up to be given to the future of the work, in consultation with the artist
”.
The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak also visited the site.
"
It's a direct attack on freedom of expression, which is quite serious
," said the minister.
"
These works are certainly very hard to look at, but start from an intention which is to denounce the horrors of war
", she added.
Child pornography?
Indeed, this work of art has been at the heart of a controversy for several weeks.
Various associations for the rights of the child had seized the judge of the Council of State to claim the stall of the painting of the Swiss artist, considering it as child pornography.
For the associations Jurists for Childhood, Pornostop, Innocence in danger and Faced with incest, the controversial painting depicts the rape of a child by an adult and could be seen by minors.
A request rejected by the institution which considered that the work
"does not seriously and illegally affect the best interests of the child or the dignity of the person".
““
It emerges from the proceedings at the hearing and from the documents in the investigation that the sole intention of the artist is to denounce a crime.
»
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The Palais de Tokyo had welcomed, in a press release, the decision of the Council of State, on April 14.
If the artist and the museum maintain that it is not a child on the painting, a mediation system had been put in place taking into account the "
sensitive nature of the work
": minors cannot enter the room without being accompanied by adults.
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