We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A BRITISH SCULPTOR has defended a piece of art which may or may not depict a vagina which has been unveiled at the palace of Versailles in France.
The artwork, called Dirty Corner, is on the grounds of the lavish palace where French royalty, including Marie Antoinette, lived until the French Revolution.
Artist Anish Kapoor said in one interview that the work signifies “the vagina of the queen who takes power” and described as a ‘provocation’.
However he later said that viewers can interpret it as they like.
“A work has multiple interpretive possibilities,” Kapoor said.
What I am doing here is kind of taking the surface of [renowned French landscape designer] Le Notre’s ordered garden and looking inside.
“Inevitable, one comes across the body, our bodies and a certain level of sexuality,” he said. ”But it is certainly not the only thing it is about”.
The mayor of Versailles tweeted that Kapoor had ‘slipped up’, while some right wing bloggers expressed their unhappiness with the artwork. The far-right mayor of the town of Béziers said that the work ‘disfigures our heritage’.
However visitors to Versailles were largely unperturbed.
“I think it is appropriate. I mean, a human body is a work of art,” said one 28-year-old tourist.
One resident of Versailles took issue with the sculpture for other reasons.
“This is a bit of a mess, a heap of metal, rocks,” said Pierre Dhainaut. “I know it is a composition, but let’s say that this is ruining the perspective that visitors of the palace may have”.
Kapoor’s exhibition at Versailles coincides with the 300th anniversary of the death of King Louis XIV, nicknamed the Sun King, who became infamous for his extravagance at Versailles.
Anish Kapoor was born in Mumbai in 1954 and lives and works in London. He won the Turner Prize for art in 1991 and his work has been shown around the world.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Its neither shocking nor fine. It looks rather shit, just like most postmodern art. Amazing how art is the one thing to actually get worse since the Renaissance
You said shit!
As a recent art college graduate I can tell you that most of my peers worked hard in the traditional and digital fields they chose. Technology does not make art ‘easier’, it’s in fact quite difficult. You do not know the process that goes into a piece of artwork until you are the one making it.
I like vaginas.
Well then, here is another one for you; -
http://redicecreations.com/article.php?id=17158
It’s just a bit of craic
Sure it’s all art. What sort of dick would have a problem with a giant vagina
Well whoever thought it looks like a vagina obviously has never seen one.
Men wandering around versailles mystified as to where the clitoris is…
@ Dave. Comment of the week LOL!
A Modern art sculpture has no place among the classical architecture of the likes of Versailles. Stick it outside a modern municipal building. Its like when they stuck that ugly glass pyramid in front of the Louvre.
There is a place for modern art but it is not amid the classical.
I was watching a Tom Hanks doc the other day, turns out Mary Magdalene is buried under it.
It’s pretty crap.
There’s enough phallic sculptures around….
I’ve seen a few that size in my time.
A giant statue of Enda? Where?
Vaginas are amazing
I’ve never seen a tuba that size but vaginas can be pretty scary.
Tubas can be scary too to be fair. Berlioz’s ‘March to the scaffold’ from ‘Symphonie Fantastque’ for example.
It relies on a touch of the ‘King’s new clothes’ mentality.
He should have built it around the Spire on springs.
Think I can see a few crabs on the rocks !
Forget the guillotine…A fanny fart from that cavity would take your head off..!!
Mark, the word you are looking for is – Queefing
bang of fish of it
Let them eat…,
Here Kitty Kitty Kitty …
Wasting you time. Pussy never comes when you call – only when you ignore it.
I wouldn’t go back near that palace,
it’s only a cu.t of a place
Going to Versailles tomorrow. Claaaaaaaaaaass.
As she says…. “it’s my first time”
It has to be a good thing. It will bring visitors from all over some to snatch a glimpse, others to glimpse a snatch.
have your say