Art News

A display at The Curve Gallery in London's Barbican Centre will be taken down in the wake of a censorship row after Barbican staff asked a speaker to avoid the topic of free Palestine at a recent talk. The art display is from the Resolve Collective group.

In an Instagram post, the collective said it was cancelling the display because of an act of anti-Palestinian censorship. The decision partly stemmed from the cancellation of a talk on 15 June between the Egyptian researcher Nihal El Assar and Elias Anastas, the co-founder of the Palestinian radio station, Radio Alhara. The livestreamed discussion on the radical possibilities of radio was part of Resolve Collective's them's the breaks series of programmed events.

Shortly before the event was due to begin, the Barbican shared an editorial note with the speaker asking him to avoid spending too much time discussing free Palestine. The Barbican then clams that a 'technical failure' brought the event to an abrupt close.

A few Christians have slammed a plan to erect a statue of an Amazonian love god near a cathedral as offensive and an insult.

A 6ft 2in bronze figure is being paid for by taxpayers as part of a £1million trail of five sculptures through the centre of Wakefield, West Yorkshire. According to its creator, artist Jason Wilsher-Mills, the sculpture was inspired by a painting of local Victorian conservationist Charles Waterton capturing a caiman or alligator-type creature, the love story of his parents and his own connections with Wakefield.

But a planning application to site the pagan statue on Cathedral Walk, close to the Anglican cathedral's main entrance, has prompted more than 60 complaints from members of the public. One objector commented:

How can you possibly think that the erection of a Sun God opposite the central place of Christian worship in the city and district could be acceptable?

It is at best insensitive and at worst a deliberate attempt to mock Christianity, the cathedral and all it stands for. Is this a precedent?

Should we expect the council to place such offensive statues outside other local centres of worship, Christian and otherwise?

The project is being fully funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. If planning consent is granted the sculptures will be in place this summer.

The National Gallery has removed a picture from an upcoming major exhibition from its website over claims of antisemitic portrayal of Jews.

Albrecht Dürer's Christ Among the Doctors from 1509 depicts a story from the Gospel according to Luke of Jesus on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, alongside a caricature of Jewish men from the synagogue.

The National Gallery had initially displayed the artwork prominently on its website advertising the upcoming exhibition without mentioning its portrayal of Jews. After the gallery was alerted to the fact by Jewish News reader Ralph Harris, it removed the picture online and highlighted the antisemitic representation in its gallery. A spokesperson said:

We are aware that the representation of the Doctors may cause offence and both the wall texts and the audio guide in the exhibition will acknowledge and address caricature and antisemitic portrayal in the painting.

We have removed the image and accompanying text from our online gallery of selected exhibited works as we felt that in this format there was not adequate space for the interpretation required for this work.

The city of Vienna is taking an offbeat approach to the social media censorship of art and has turned to using the adults-only online platform OnlyFans to put its most explicit artworks on full display.

The tourism board for the Austrian capital is now presenting art from four of Vienna's most revered museums, including the Albertina Museum and the Leopold Museum, on the adults-only platform in response to the blocking of some artistic content containing nudity on social media.

In July, the Albertina Museum's TikTok account was suspended -- and later blocked -- for displaying works by the Japanese artist and photographer Nobuyoshi Araki that showed a partially-obscured breast. Back in 2019, Instagram said that a painting by the legendary Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens violated its community guidelines. Earlier this year, when the Leopold Museum marked its 20th anniversary, a video uploaded to Facebook and Instagram which contained work by Koloman Moser was rejected because it was flagged as potentially pornographic by the platforms.

Now, these works and more of Vienna's 18+ content can be found on full, unfiltered display on OnlyFans -- a subscription-based website best known as a platform for sharing and viewing pornographic content.