THE MUSEUM OF CÉLINE DELAVAUX ART THAT'LL SHOCK YOU
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THE Museum OFCéline Delavaux Art That’ll Shock You SCANDALS
La Nona Ora Maurizio Cattelan - 1999
Is there a work by Maurizio Cattelan that doesn’t shock the viewer? This eternal
bad boy of contemporary art has, in fact, chosen provocation as his signature
style. But beyond the desire to create a scandal, the artist is denouncing a value
system that he gives legitimacy to at the same time.
I
n 1999, Maurizio Cattelan imagined that John-Paul II had been hit by a meteorite. This
thought led to a life-size hyperrealistic sculpture made of polyester resin, with natural hair
implants, vestments and accessories that you could easily mistake for the real pope. The
subject’s face, tense with pain, makes it looks like he’s breathing his last breathe or like he’s
just died. Viewers tend to react depending on their beliefs. Once the first shock has worn off,
some insist that it’s an unacceptable outrage; others laugh and perhaps try to think about
the meaning of such a work. The title (La Nona Ora, or The Ninth Hour) is an allusion to the
moment when Christ died on the cross. Cattelan offers a new version of the biblical episode in
an attempt to suggest, with sarcasm, the fragility of religious power or of belief itself, as well as
the vanity of humans. Many of Cattelan’s works, in fact, can be seen as contemporary forms of
vanity that ridicule all types of authority and pretensions to power.
It should be noted, however, that the humor, symbolism and philosophical meaning of La Nona
Ora escaped some viewers during its exhibition. At the centenary celebrations of the Zacheta
Gallery in Warsaw, in 2001, the extreme-right party leader Witol Tomczak damaged the work
while trying to free the pope’s body from the weight of the meteorite and set him back on
his feet. The curator of the exhibition, for her part, was showered with insults and ended up
resigning. Once the work was repaired—the legs had been broken—it continually increased in
value: estimated at 80,000 dollars when it was first created, La Nona Ora was sold in 2004 for
3 million dollars.
More recently, those in favor of censure failed again when the Milan Stock Exchange demanded
the removal of Love, one of Cattelan’s sculptures that was placed in a public space in front
of the financial institution. This sculpture that gives the finger to onlookers had not, however,
seemed to bother local residents. The city government, thus, did not given in to the demand
of the president of the stock exchange and has kept the work on display. In recognition of this
gesture of support, the artist has given Love to the city.
La nona ora, Maurizio Cattelan, 1999,
Polyester resin, natural hair, accessories, stone, carpet, variable dimensions depending on the exhibition space
Photograph: Attilio Maranzano; Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paris
Liberty Guiding the People
Eugène Delacroix - 1830
Liberty Guiding the People is one of most famous symbols of rebel-
lion in the history of art. The work was purchased by the French go-
vernment in 1831 to commemorate Louis-Philippe’s accession to the
throne. Conscious, however, of the subversive power of this exalted
scene of glory, the new “King of the French” immediately decided to
forbid its public exhibition.
D
uring the popular insurrection that shook Paris in July 1830, Eugène Delacroix went from
barricade to barricade armed with his sketchbook. He then began the immense painting,
Liberty Guiding the People. He portrays the very heart of the rebellion, the crucial moment
when the republican rebels broke through the barricades, on July 28, dethroning Charles X to
replace him, finally, with Louis-Philippe. However, the scene is charged with a symbolic force
that goes beyond its political dimension. Delacroix was clearly a patriot, but not exactly a
revolutionary: “I decided on a modern subject, a barricade, and if I didn’t fight for the fatherland,
at least I painted for it,” he confided to his brother. Many of his works were commissions for the
royal family, though he himself was divided in his support between maintaining the constitutional
monarchy and reestablishing the Republic. Thus, Liberty Guiding the People is not really a sort
of hymn to the Republic—first and foremost it’s a great painting of the Romantic period. And if
there’s a revolution, it’s artistic.
The spectacular character of the scene is accentuated by the pyramidical composition whose
summit is occupied by the red of the tricolor flag. The realistic details give a vibrant force to
the portrayal. But the figures also take on an allegorical aspect: two Parisian street urchins, a
middleclass gentleman, a worker, a farmer and a soldier become symbolic representatives of
the people. The imposing central figure, which recalls the “winged victory” statues of ancient
art, is transformed into an emblem of Liberty. It’s the realism, however, of the representation, its
embodiment of the “modern” woman, that provoked hostile criticism.
The work was first shown at the Salon of 1831, and Louis-Philippe no doubt bought it in order
to satisfy republican opinion. But the July Monarchy took care to hide this illustration of violent
insurrection, and the painting was relegated to the storerooms of the Louvre. It was only on
the occasion of the Universal Exposition of 1855 that the work finally had a genuine public
exhibition, before making it to the walls of the Louvre in 1874. The subversive aspects of Liberty
had not, however, come to an end. In 2006 the Turkish Minister of Education had it removed
from the textbooks because of the supposed indecency of the female figure.
Liberty Guiding the People,
1830, oil on canvas, 260 cm x 325 cm
Louvre, Paris, France
The Turkish Bath
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - 1862
It wasn’t until 1859 that Ingres finally delivered his Turkish Bath, a painting that
had been commissioned in 1848 by Prince Napoléon, one of Napoléon III’s cou-
sins. But since the prince’s wife was shocked by the work, it was quickly returned.
Thus, there was no public scandal, just a bit of turmoil within the imperial family
caused by this painting now recognized as a masterpiece.
T
he subject of women bathing was quite common in mid-19th-century painting and was
not in and of itself considered shocking. It’s the overcrowding, however, in the work’s
composition, so many nude women in such close proximity, the accumulation of voluptuous
bodies, that gives it an erotic and disconcerting character. Almost all of the figures were taken
from earlier sketches and paintings. Thus, The Turkish Bath can be seen as a synthesis of the
work of the painter who was by then 82 years old.
The Turkish Bath, in fact, is part of an oriental vein that Ingres had been exploring for more than
fifty years. The great epic paintings, inspired by the Egyptian campaign of Napoléon Bonaparte
in 1798, worked to legitimize Napoleonic imperialism. But Ingres used orientalism to explore and
perfect the purity of his lines in the representation of the female body. The artist never actually
traveled to the Orient, but was inspired by engravings and his own reading in his creation of
The Turkish Bath, which combines imaginary conceptions of harems and hammams.
Considering the amount of time that lapsed between the commissioning of the work and
its delivery—almost ten years—it’s probable that Ingres spent a lot of time working on this
painting. When, in 1859, the work was rejected, it was brought back to the artist’s studio where
it underwent a radical transformation. In 1863 Ingres decided to cut the canvas, which had
originally been rectangular, to make it into a square whose corners he then rounded off. Rather
than lessening the intensity of the subject, the circular shape tends to accentuate the eroticism
of the scene by giving the viewer the impression of peering through a keyhole. The famous
collector of erotic art, Khalil Bey, who acquired The Turkish Bath in 1865, knew what he was
doing. After several years of hesitation by the museum’s administrative council, the painting
finally became part of the collections of the Louvre in 1911.
During the Salon of the autumn of 1905, however, The Turkish Bath had already been revealed
to the public. It was the modern aspect of the composition, which suggests the technique
of collage through the repetition of the motif, that drew the attention of avant-garde painters
of the time. One of them was Pablo Picasso, who the following year began a painting entitled
The Harem, which eventually became famous as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies
of Avignon). Thus one scandalous work inspired another.
The Turkish Bath, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1862,
oil on wood
Louvre, Paris, France
Balloon Dog (Magenta)
Jeff Koons - 1994-2000
At the end of 2008, the baroque salons of the Palace of Versailles were tempora-
rily taken over by “neopop” works by the world-famous contemporary artist Jeff
Koons. Presented as a major event and widely covered by the media, this exhibi-
tion not only created controversy, but also sparked a lawsuit.
F
or the “Jeff Koons-Versailles” exhibition, seventeen ultra-kitsch monumental sculptures by
the artist were installed in the enfilade of grand salons in the famous chateau. With a giant
lobster or an immense rabbit made of polychrome stainless steel amidst the décor of the
17th-century artist Charles Le Brun and right in front of paintings by the great masters or replacing
royal crystal candelabras, the installation, clearly meant to be provocative and playful, was not
appreciated by everyone. Even before the opening, a petition from the National Union of French
Writers to the Minister of Culture demanded the cancelation of the exhibition. There were charges
of poor taste in this mixing of genres and of an insult to French heritage. And above and beyond
the criticisms on aesthetic grounds, detractors also highlighted the presence of a conflict of
interests. Jean-Jacques Aillagon, then chief administrator of the Palace of Versailles and former
Minister of Culture, had just ended his term as director of the Palazzo Grassi, in Venice, owned by
industrialist François Pinault, a major collector of the works of Jeff Koons. It was thus suspected
that Aillagon had organized the event to help increase the value of Pinault’s collection.
In the center of the Salon of Hercules, in the Grand Apartment of the King, Koons had one of his
Balloon Dog sculptures set up. With the gleaming magenta chromium stainless steel in front of
the sumptuous marble fireplace decorated with engraved bronze, the contemporary spectacle
highlighted the excesses of the past. But for Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, who claims
to be a direct descendant of Louis XIV, the exhibition demanded legal action. In his capacity
as the moral representative of the late monarch, he thus filed a lawsuit in the court of the city
of Versailles to close it down. According to him, the “Jeff-Koons-Versailles” exhibition was a
profanation of the site that displayed a lack of respect for the dead, who, in this case, happened to
be his ancestors. He further demanded “the right to have access to the country’s cultural heritage
without being exposed to pornography” and was particularly shocked by the bust of Louis XIV,
created in 1986 by Koons, not out of marble, but out of “proletarian material.” Bourbon-Parme’s
case was dismissed by the court and then again by the Council of State when he appealed the
lower court’s ruling. Jean-Jacques Aillagon applauded the decision, declaring to the press: “To
give the right to royal or aristocratic families to have control over how the country’s heritage will
be presented would be equivalent to declaring that the Revolution had never occurred.”
Balloon Dog (Magenta), Jeff Koons, 1994-2000,
high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating, 307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm, 5 unique versions (Blue, Magenta, Yellow, Orange, Red)
) in the grand apartments of the Palace of Versailles (Salon of Hercules)
A Burial at Ornans
Gustave Courbet - 1849-1850
A trivial subject, ugly figures, “socialist” art: criticism rang out at the presentation
of A Burial at Ornans at the Salon of 1850. Still, the painting won an award and
today remains one of the best examples of pictorial realism, a movement Gustave
Courbet, one of its founders, identified himself with.
A
Burial at Ornans provoked a scandal for more than aesthetic reasons. What
was found shocking, in fact, was that Courbert included representations of
common people in the painting. Villagers from Ornans, the painter’s place of
birth, in fact, posed for him in the studio he set up in the attic of his family’s house.
Courbet created an impressive gallery of figures: surrounding the clergyman are
notable and wealthy residents, simple villagers, workers, artisans and, above all,
sansculottes, radical participants in the French Revolution. All of the different
social classes are thus brought together at the burial, and the painting’s political
dimension cannot be ignored, created as it was just one year after the election of
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as president of the Republic. The artist, thus, was no
longer subject to the whims of royal power and the need to portray scenes of the
glorious exploits of the sovereigns. Instead, Courbet chose to represent a modern
subject depicting an everyday event in the lives of simple provincial citizens. And
as a political manifesto, the work also represents, as the artist himself affirmed, a
statement of his artistic principles. It was the first time Courbet had painted on such
a large canvas. And, according to the academic tradition, large-scale works were
reserved for “noble” subjects such as historical events and biblical or mythological
subjects. By bringing contemporary life into “history painting,” Courbet subverted
the hierarchy of genres and rejected the idealization of subjects characteristic of
academic painting.
Art historians still disagree about the meaning of the painting. Is it a provocative
staging of modernity, a socialist manifesto or a political or artistic allegory? The
answer may lie in the identity of the person being buried: is it one of Courbet’s
sisters or the Second Republic, whose rapid demise the painter had foreseen, or
A Burial at Ornans, Gustave Courbet, 1849-1850
perhaps the dying Romantic Movement?
oil on canvas, 315 x 668 cm
In any case, it’s clear that Courbet was conscious of the useful publicity that can musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
be created by a scandal, and, in fact, A Burial at Ornans became an archetypal
example of pictorial realism. In 1850, an art critic predicted that the painting would
become “in modern history, the columns of Hercules of Realism,” but he warned
against taking things too far, advice, one could say, that Courbet didn’t heed.
The Trench Otto Dix - 1923
The Trench, painted by Otto Dix, recalls the unbearable reality of war. The work where visitors were invited to admire “healthy” art, corresponding to the Nazi ideal of beauty.
was first subject to censure in 1923 when it was concealed from the public. In For the most part, these were academic works with no real aesthetic value. The Trench was
1937, the work was exhibited, but only to highlight its “degenerate” quality as per- sold at auction on January 22, 1940 for 200 dollars before all trace of it was lost. The work was
ceived by the Nazis. It disappeared a few years later, never to resurface. probably destroyed a few years later.
A
t the age of 23, the German artist Otto Dix enrolled in the artillery corps during the First
World War. From the heart of the trenches, he brought back drawings that displayed a
poignant realism. After the war, he painted works portraying the disastrous consequences
of the conflict: decadent scenes of a divided society, maimed and crippled veterans and
prostitutes. In 1922, the painting At the Mirror led
to his being charged with disseminating obscene
images. The following year, Dix was the target of
new accusations for corruption of morals, but he
won the case brought against him. His immense
oil painting, The Trench, begun in 1920 and not
finished until 1923, spares the viewer none of the
details of the tragedy produced by an artillery
assault: impaled and mutilated bodies, with
human flesh mixing with the still smoking earth.
His art dealer, Karl Nierendorf, was nonetheless
able to sell the work to the Wallraf-Richarts
Museum in Cologne. During its first public exhibition, viewers had to
draw back a curtain to see the painting. This act of false modesty
only accentuated the debate that immediately erupted between
supporters and detractors of the work. Some saw it as antimilitaristic, or even anti-German,
propaganda, at a time of intense nationalism. For the critic Julius Meier-Gräfe, presenting this
work in Cologne, so close to the borders with the French, Belgian and even English enemies,
was equivalent to a denial of the heroism of German soldiers. The director of the museum was
finally obligated to return the work to the dealer; it circulated in Germany for a while before
being hidden away in the storerooms of the Dresden Museum in 1928. Five years later, Otto
Dix was relieved of his functions as instructor at the academy of beaux arts in Dresden by
the Nazis, and two hundred and sixty of his works were removed from German museums. In
1937, The Trench was designated for opprobrium and exhibited as an example of “degenerate
art” alongside works of mental patients. This attempt to cast ridicule on the works of great
The Trench, Otto Dix, 1923,
modern artists was presented as a pointed contrast to the “Great Exhibition of German Art” oil on canvas, photograph of the now lost painting, taken in 1937 at the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich, coll. Zentralarchiv, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 227 x 250 cm
Klara and Edda Belly Dancing
Nan Goldin - 1998
In September 2007, a snapshot taken by American photographer Nan Goldin was
seized by British police to prevent its public exhibition. The image of one naked
and one scantily dressed girl constituted a potential infraction of child pornogra-
phy laws. The action was perceived as constituting a form of censure, and the
entire exhibition was then canceled at the request of the collection’s owner.
F
rom 1973 to 1999 Nan Goldin made a series of one hundred and forty-nine snapshots
that she put together under the title “Thanksgiving.” In October 2007, the collection was
supposed to be exhibited at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England.
Before the opening of the exhibition, an employee of the institution, judging that one of the
photographs, Klara and Edda Belly Dancing, might offend visitors, decided to alert the police.
The photograph was seized by authorities in order to decide whether it constituted a violation
of the law. The owner of the work in question—none other than singer Elton John—immediately
requested the cancelation of the exhibition, interpreting the action of the Baltic as a form of
censure. On the one hand, the seized photograph had already been reprinted and exhibited in
numerous shows in the United States and Europe and had already been on the auction block at
Christie’s two times. On the other, Klara and Edda Belly Dancing is an integral part of the series.
It’s the collection of photographs as a whole and the links that are created among them that
make up the work.
The artistic work of Nan Goldin is based on the exhibition of the intimacy of the artist and those
close to her. Her work as a whole could certainly be charged with immodesty. Goldin tirelessly
documents her personal world, revealing her life as a New York artist. What she offers is a new
form of autobiography, which began with family portraits in the 1970s and then explored various
aspects of her own lifestyle. Her works that have received the most attention in the media
portray sometimes violent scenes of decadence, evoking a generation of marginal creatures
of the night, a world of sex and drugs and AIDS victims. The photographs are presented as if
they were amateur snapshots, in small formats, with imprecise colors and contrast and hung
apparently randomly on the wall, accentuating the disturbing sensation of seeing into this
private world. The work of Nan Goldin has mellowed a bit over time, more recently exploring
themes of motherhood, children and the family, with more serenity. Goldin, in fact, no long
corresponds to the figure of the artiste maudit, or “cursed artist,” she was seen as for a long
time. It is thus highly unlikely that in the future censors will find any reason to ban her work for
the protection of our supposedly innocent eyes.
Klara and Edda Belly Dancing, Nan Goldin, 1998,
photograph, private coll.
The Last Judgment
Michael Angelo - 1536-1541
When, in 1541, Michael Angelo unveiled The Last Judgment fresco he had just
finished, a controversy erupted. A humanist interpretation of the biblical account,
a rejection of the use of oil painting, the nudity and postures of the figures—eve-
rything scandalized the censors from an artistic as well as religious point of view.
I
n 1532, Pope Clement VII once again asked Michael Angelo to decorate the Sistine Chapel.
The famous fresco painter, who twenty years earlier had already transformed the ceiling
with his painting of Genesis, began another project just as monumental. This time it was
The Last Judgment that Michael Angelo was to portray on the alter wall of the chapel. In 1541,
after five years of work, the fresco was finished. The scene is organized around the central
figure of Christ, surrounded by four hundred other figures. Christ is portrayed as human, with
the build of an athlete whose imperial gesture suspends the movement of all those who await
his judgment. On one side are the saved, awakened by the sound of angels’ trumpets; on the
other, the damned, pulled by demons towards Hell. The work as a whole is a fascinating mosaic
of human figures with peaceful, resigned or frightened expressions. Michael Angelo offers a
tortured and unusual vision of the biblical episode, which he portrays with considerable liberty.
At the bottom of the fresco appear two characters inspired not by the Scriptures, but Dante’s
The Divine Comedy: Charon, on his boat, and Minos, the judge of the Underworld. Controversy
began at the very beginning of the project when Michael Angelo refused to use oil paint, then
considered most appropriate for religious subjects, preferring his favorite technique, the fresco.
And, once completed, the work scandalized viewers primarily because all of the figures, Christ
included, were portrayed nude. For Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican Master of Ceremonies, this
indecent work would have been more appropriate for the public baths. When Michael Angelo
died, Pope Paul III considered having the work painted over, but he finally decided on a censored
version. Daniele da Volterra was charged with covering up the nudity of certain figures, which
earned him ridicule and the nickname, Il Braghettone, “the breeches maker.” In the 18th century,
Clement XII had additional figures covered up. But the license taken by the artist was more
ideological than erotic: the gravitation of the figures around Christ can be seen as recalling the
movement of the planets as described by Copernicus—a forbidden theory at the time. Thus, the
interpretation of the Last Judgment by Michael Angelo is first and foremost humanist, placing
man at the center of the universe and at the heart of artistic concerns.
The Last Judgment, Michael Angelo, 1536-1541
fresco, approx. 1,490 x 1,330 cm, Sistine Chapel, Vatican
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