Russian government bans picture of kissing policemen from going on show in Paris

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Russian government bans picture of kissing policemen from going on show in Paris

 

Last updated at 12:04pm on 12th October 2007 Comments

The Russian government has banned a photograph showing two policemen kissing each other passionately in a Siberian forest from going on display in Paris.

 

The image shot among the snow-covered forest of birch trees shows the two men, in full uniform, kissing on the lips and holding each other by the buttocks.

Its creators claim it is a homage to the British graffit artist Banksy but the work proved too controversial for culture minister Alexander Sokolov.

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Russia's culture minister claimed Kissing Policeman (An Epoch of Clemency) was politically provocative and banned it and 16 other works from going on display in Paris

 

 

Mr Sokolov described the picture - entitled Kissing Policeman (An Epoch of Clemency), as political provocation.

He has now pulled it and 16 other works from a display of contemporary Russian art at Paris's Maison Rouge exhibition hall next week.

This is despite the fact they have all already been on display in Moscow's state-owned Tretyakov gallery.

Mr Sokolov said: "It this exhibition appears, it will bring shame on Russia. In this case, all of us will bear full responsibility.

"It is inadmissible... to take all this pornography, kissing policeman and erotic pictures to Paris."

Another work by the same artists, the Blue Noses collective, which showed Vladimir Putin, George Bush and Osama bin Laden cavorting on a doube bed in their underpants, was also banned.

His actions prompted one of two artists in the Blue Noses, Alexander Shaburov, to say: "The state is beginning to administer culture in the same way it did under Khrushchev."

The artist said he and Viacheslav Mizin had been inspired by Banksy's "iconic image of two constables kissing" and had wanted to do the same in Russia.

It had nothing to do with homosexuality, but was an absurdist fantasy about what could happen if everyone showed mercy and tenderness to each other, he explained.

And he commented: "Given the fact the state has banned it, we haven't quite reached this point yet."

The photo was staken in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and shown at the Tretyakov gallery in February and March this year. It is now in a small gallery in Moscow.

Mr Shaburov said: "There was no scandal when it was shown here in Russia. The aim of our work is to take cliches and to make them as absurd as possible.

"We enjoy taking newspaper headlines and transforming them into something idiotic."