The ridiculous face of Antisemitism

[Cleopatra]

I know, it's not funny but I am certain that you will laugh as much as I did.

In the context of the Cultural Olympiad that precedes the Olympic Games, the Organizing Committee of Athens 2004 has organized one of the biggest Art Exhibitions we have ever seen in Greece.

I haven't seen it yet but unfortunetaly the leader of an extreme -right christian party saw it and... alas for the Belgian ( exarch you devilish Belgian your league is scandalizing the Orthodox Greeks) artist saw the painting of a phallus ejaculating on a Cross...After he came over his senses, he approached the painting and he said that the penis looks circumsized!!!!

The Zionist conspiracy was revealed!!!!!

Enjoy the article from "The Observer"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1106689,00.html

'Obscene' art offends orthodox Greek taste
Helena Smith in Athens
Sunday December 14, 2003
The Observer
For 45 days the phallus had gone unnoticed. But then Giorgos Karatzaferis visited Outlook, Greece's biggest ever contemporary art exhibition. The far-right politician had a discerning eye: he stood in front of Belgian artist Thierry de Cordier's Asperges Me (Dry Sin), and saw red.
'It was,' he said, 'the most obscene, immoral, shameless painting I had ever seen.'
On the right of the canvas was a cross, propped against a wall; on the left a fully erect penis. Upon closer observation Karatzaferis could see that semen was dripping from the crucifix. Even worse, 'the penis, that thing, looked circumcised', railed the leader of the ultra-conservative Peoples' party.
Incensed, Karatzaferis headed straight for the offices of Supreme Court Prosecutor Dimitris Linos who duly launched an inquiry into whether the work's public presentation constituted a crime.
He needn't have. Within hours the offending piece had been withdrawn. The painting, on display since 24 October, had 'insulted religious sentiment'.
Sarah Lucas's gargantuan Wanking Arm might have pride of place at the €2.3 million (£1.6 million) event. But after 'weighing all the facts' Athens's Culture Minister announced that Asperges Me (Dry Sin) would be removed.
Almost unanimously, Greece's political and ecclesiastical elite felt moved to agree. 'Vulgarity does not produce culture,' a spokesman for the main opposition centre-right party snapped.
'It's an insult to our morals and customs and our religion,' said Epiphanios Economou of the Greek Orthodox Church.

A young woman stormed into the exhibit early on Thursday and made straight for a photograph of a naked man copulating with a watermelon. Before security guards could stop her, she had slashed the work.
Later that day another woman - also dressed in Orthodox-mandated black - tried to deface a sketch of a full frontal nude by the American artist Raymond Pettibon. 'She charged in like a comet, screaming "it's obscene",' a security officer said.
Ever since, the exhibit's organisers have been deluged by threats against the artworks and the 'people who put them there'. 'The threats have been very serious, our telephones have not stopped ringing,' Joachimides said. 'I can't believe it, Greece is in the EU, this is the 21st century,' he sighed.
Last night, the exhibits were being protected by armed guards, following yet more threats to 'take down the penises'.
What would the ancients say? After all, the capital's museums were brimming with bare-chested Aphrodites and priapic Adonises. 'Should such works be banned?' asked the liberal daily, Eleftherotypia, splashing some of the classical masterpieces across its front page. 'These reactions, by both the church and politicians, have brought back dark memories.'

[Mycroft]

I want pictures!

[Ed]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
I know, it's not funny but I am certain that you will laugh as much as I did.





Weird "art" show.

[CurtC]

I'm struggling trying to connect this weird art with the antisemitism in the thread title. Can you help?

I can see that, since the offending phallus was (apparently) circumsized, there's maybe a reference to semitism in some way. But antisemitism?

And I think it could equally be interpreted as an American penis. HEY, ANTIAMERICANISM IN EUROPE! I'M SHOCKED! SHOCKED!

[Cleopatra]

You missed the point Curt. None but the leader of this extreme-right winged party saw the penis circumsized... he attempted to connect the "blasphemy" with the Jews.

Mycroft LOL I would be interested to see the other painting the article mentions, the one with the watermelon....

Ed what do you expect from Belgians :p

[CurtC]

I still don't really get it. The only one to bring up semitism was you. I can see how a christian person could be offended by a painting of a penis ejaculating on a crucifix, especially if it was government-sponsored. Are you saying that because he noticed it was circumsized, that he was even more offended because you think he thought it was a jewish penis? Couldn't he have been thinking it was an American penis?

[DanishDynamite]

CurtC:Are you saying that because he noticed it was circumsized, that he was even more offended because you think he thought it was a jewish penis? Couldn't he have been thinking it was an American penis? Does it really matter? This story is proof positive that Europe is a festering hotbed of Anti-ness. Could be Anti-Semitism. Could be Anti-Americanism. Given that circumcision occurs all over the world, it could even be Anti-Worldism!

It's certainly proof of something.

[Tony]

I don’t get it, do only Americans and Jews get circumcised?

[Cleopatra]

The fault was mine.

Yes, in Greece, circumcision is related only to the Jews and in Greece is considered ( since Antiquity) a very barbarian custom, so the Greek politician by descirbing this penis as circumcised, he implied that the blasphemus was a Jew, I should have clarified the opinion we have here about circumcision.

[Supercharts]

Cleo,

It's a greek thing...

http://www.mliles.com/melkite/circumcision.shtml

It's celebrated on January 1st. Got a date? I can show you a real current work of art. :D

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Cleo,

It's a greek thing...

http://www.mliles.com/melkite/circumcision.shtml

It's celebrated on January 1st. Got a date? I can show you a real current work of art. :D

So does that mean the penis ejaculating on the cross could have been the penis of Christ?

[tamiO]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Cleo,

It's a greek thing...

http://www.mliles.com/melkite/circumcision.shtml

It's celebrated on January 1st. Got a date? I can show you a real current work of art. :D

That's all well and good, but I want to know about the Hypapanty. Do they resemble thongs or granny panties....

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
The fault was mine.

Yes, in Greece, circumcision is related only to the Jews and in Greece is considered ( since Antiquity) a very barbarian custom, so the Greek politician by descirbing this penis as circumcised, he implied that the blasphemus was a Jew, I should have clarified the opinion we have here about circumcision.

The religious custom of penis mutilation is common among a lot of cultures, Australia included.....Methinks you should worry more about why you are including people screwing watermelons in your Olympics cultural events.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Cleo,

It's a greek thing...

http://www.mliles.com/melkite/circumcision.shtml

It's celebrated on January 1st. Got a date? I can show you a real current work of art. :D

You dog! ... Oh yeah, nevermind.

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Supercharts
Cleo,

It's a greek thing...

http://www.mliles.com/melkite/circumcision.shtml

It's celebrated on January 1st. Got a date? I can show you a real current work of art. :D


LOL

Ha! The Church knows that Christ was a Jew.

Greeks do not practice circumcision and it's not that they just don't practice it, they are strongly against it, it's a cultural thing that dates back in Antiquity. In Ancient Greeks texts you can see references to the Jews as the people who get circumcised,a scandalous practice- circumcision, along with the sexual and dietary restrictions of the Mosaic Law made Ancient Greeks to compose the first anti-judaic parodies.

Anyway, the important thing is that this idiot said that the penis was circumcised in order to imply that Jews were involved in the scandal and I think that this made him look terribly ridiculous.Of course, his followers adore him more but people that vote for a christian pseudo-fondamentalist extreme right wing are nuts anyway...

The main argument of this politician was that if this happened in the States the President himself would intervene. I don't know if this is true but according to his theories, USA is a country that is dominated and governed by circumcised penises and he means the Jews of course. In that case and if what he said about the painting is true ( which is not because I heard an interview of the artist on TV who is a former Belgian Catholic who grew-up alone in a Catholic boarding school and got disgussed by Religion in general) the President wouldn't bother :p

Fool LOL Hey, don't you like Modern Art? :p


edited to add: Of course, before the "scandal" people that would never visit the exhibition because they hate Modern Art, they seem that they have changed their minds and suddenly ( sorry Suddenly) the exhibition got crowded...

[Cleon]

My feelings on priests as art critics:

Christianity's holy symbol is a man being tortured to death. For that reason alone I can't take seriously any claims made by priests that a work of art is "shameful," "offensive," or "immoral."

[Luciana]

<<--- slight tangent

In the late 60s, Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Those were the darkest years. Censorship was rampant and anything that smelled of "commie" would be arrested and tortured. Censors were not the smartest people, and yet they managed to raise some eyebrows when they prohibited an exposition of modern art.

It can't be, everybody thought, if even abstract art isn't allowed, what then? But the officials could justify it: those works of art were cubism, the artist called himself cubist, so it's obvious they're related to Cuba and must be prohibited!

[DanishDynamite]

Cleopatra:The fault was mine.

Yes, in Greece, circumcision is related only to the Jews and in Greece is considered ( since Antiquity) a very barbarian custom, so the Greek politician by descirbing this penis as circumcised, he implied that the blasphemus was a Jew, I should have clarified the opinion we have here about circumcision. Thanks for clearing that up, Cleo.

When I hear the word circumcision, I usually think first of Africa. A distant second would be the US and an even more distant third would probably be the Jews. Don't the Arab Muslims use circumcision as well?

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
<<--- slight tangent

In the late 60s, Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Those were the darkest years. Censorship was rampant and anything that smelled of "commie" would be arrested and tortured. Censors were not the smartest people, and yet they managed to raise some eyebrows when they prohibited an exposition of modern art.

It can't be, everybody thought, if even abstract art isn't allowed, what then? But the officials could justify it: those works of art were cubism, the artist called himself cubist, so it's obvious they're related to Cuba and must be prohibited!

Shirley, you're kidding.

[Luciana]

Originally posted by CFLarsen


Shirley, you're kidding.

It cracks me up each time I think about it but, unfortunately, that's a true story. :re: :D

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
It cracks me up each time I think about it but, unfortunately, that's a true story. :re: :D

Sorry, Shi...Luciana, this I need evidence of.

It's too good to be true! :)

[Luciana]

Ok, I'll look it up. I know I read this in a book somewhere, but I'll see if I can dig a link, preferably in English. There are other ridiculous stories involving censorship, but I can't remember any other now.

[Cleopatra]

Danish Dynamite yes circumcision is very common in Middle East.

Claus don't be surprised. Western and Northern Europe has never experienced dictatorships and regimes like that. The story Luciana mentions doesn't surpise me at all.

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
<<--- slight tangent

In the late 60s, Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Those were the darkest years. Censorship was rampant and anything that smelled of "commie" would be arrested and tortured. Censors were not the smartest people, and yet they managed to raise some eyebrows when they prohibited an exposition of modern art.

It can't be, everybody thought, if even abstract art isn't allowed, what then? But the officials could justify it: those works of art were cubism, the artist called himself cubist, so it's obvious they're related to Cuba and must be prohibited!

This reminds me of an anecdote of the McCarthy era and the House Comitee on Unamerican Affairs (?) - I think I read it in "Demon Haunted World".

A scientist was accused by this comitee of being a communist. The reason: he was investigating Quantum Mechanics, which was considered a "revolutionary" development in science - so if he was a revolutionary in science, he must also be a revolutionary in politics... *now where it that throwing-up smiley?*

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Claus don't be surprised. Western and Northern Europe has never experienced dictatorships and regimes like that. The story Luciana mentions doesn't surpise me at all.

Hey, we've had our share of dictatorships.... ;)

[Ed]

Originally posted by DanishDynamite
Cleopatra:Thanks for clearing that up, Cleo.

When I hear the word circumcision, I usually think first of Africa. A distant second would be the US and an even more distant third would probably be the Jews. Don't the Arab Muslims use circumcision as well?

Are you thinking female circumcision? It includes a clitorectomy and is used in africa, the religious right has, thus far, been unsuccessful in introducing it here.

[renata]

Luciana, I see your story of mindless idiocy, and raise you mine! In USSR, study and teaching of Mendel's genetics was outlawed for awhile because the idea that characteristics could be inherited was in conflict with Marxist-Communist teachings that everyone was equal, and environment was the only factor in success. Between science and Marxism, Marxism of course won.

Genetics was considered an immoral, capitalist, bourgeois, recationary, fascist, and racist science, and biologists who were proponents of it were arrested and executed en masse, like the giant of Russian biology, Vavilov. Books were removed, articles excised. The human loss to Russian biology was staggering. For decades, the way to do it was Lysenko's way, the science of acquired characteristics from environment. They rejected existance of genes altogether, and based agriculture on that. Sadly, I am not kidding. The ruling science establishment finally abandoned that awful idea when people could see chromosomes - but the first movies of meiosis were underground! He was not removed as director of Institute of Genetics until 1965. People were not allowed to speak of them. Beat that, Brazilian missy!! :D


And if you want one about art- Khruschev bulldozed modern art exhibits because he did not like them. So there. :p

[Soapy Sam]

Just as well Lysenko had no theories about circumcision.

[Luciana]

Claus,

When I started researching that story, I started to think that I fell for an urban legend. I couldn't remember exactly where I had read this.

You must have in mind that the idiocy of the military officers of the time could not be documented in any way. An article on the newspaper about how they confused cubism with Cuba?? Out of question. Mocking those in power was not a safe activity, to say the least. Censorship was rampant. It's almost impossible to find evidence of those kinds of anecdotes, as freedom of speech at the time was nonexistant.

So I asked a co-worker, a woman in her 60s and a artist, what she thought of that. She said that many works of art were censored for the simple reasons that censors could not understand them, and thus they had to be subversive. For example, a picture depicting rotten dentures was confiscated. Why? Because denture, in Portuguese, is "dentadura". See the similarity with "ditadura" (dictatorship). So a rotten "dentadura" could only mean... well, at least in this case they were right, that WAS a veiled criticism of the regime. Actually, that was one of the most creative periods for Brazilian arts and music. She said that episodes like that happened all the time, and that certainly more than one artist was censored because of cubism.

But I also found a more concrete reference. In the book "História Indiscreta da Ditadura e da Abertura - Brasil: 1964-1985" (http://an.uol.com.br/1999/fev/12/0ane.htm), the author, Ronaldo Costa Couto, tells the story of how the famed Brazilian poet Ferreira Gullar (still alive, and very respected in his political stance) had a book called "From Cubism to Neo-Concrete Art", and it was confiscated by Army officers when his home was raided.

Renata: only now, more than 20 years later, is that historians are starting to dig into that period. The juiciest stories are just coming in print, so at this point, I'm at a loss to compete with you in terms of mindless idiocy. Ooops! I meant idiocy from them. :D

[CFLarsen]

Luciana,

I can understand why people weren't allowed to criticize the military, but isn't it possible to find a newspaper mention from those days about those DANGEROUS cubist-cubans?

Or was it simply tacit oppression?

The dentadura/ditadura seems very likely, though.

[Skeptic]

You know, what annoys me about this is the kind of "art" that gets attention in the first place. My experience in photography, for instance, is limited to "point and shoot" cameras. If I tried to get an exhibition of my photographs, I'd be laughed out of town. If, however, I photographed (say) a nude black woman holding a cross with a sign saying "Jesus" around her neck, as she engaged in oral sex with a man wearing SS uniform AND a jewish skullcap with a sign saying "Judas" on his back, then--voila!--I have made "new daring and imaginitive photography that explores the boundary between the sacred and the profane", or some other nonsense the "cultured", "artsy" magazines will breathlessly repeat.

Only recently, in the US, this sort of thing occured a few times. Once, a rather mediocre play about Jesus rose to "national prominense" by portraying Jesus as gay and as having sex with his desciples (as the "Daily Show" satirical show put it, "the play features the third, fourth, and fifth coming of Christ"). A second case involved a picture of the Madonna with elephant dung on it, which managed to anger then-mayor Rudolph Juliani (the "Daily Show" again: "A compromised was reached: the picture shall remain, they'll just fling some cr*p on the other pictures as well"). A thing was Jesus-as-a-nude-black-woman photograph of the "last supper", which got the "artist" on national television many times to defend her "brave decision" to make herself a household name by using cheap gimmicks. Lastly, there was the case of a budding artist who covered himself with faw steaks while wearing a diaper with a picture of the American flag on it, to "symbolize the cannibalistic properties of America".

Ah well. It's "art", so it MUST be good, right?

(Okay, the last one is made up--I scribbed it from an "Onion" article titled "Artist Shocks Nation out of Bored Self-Satisfaction", or words to that effect.

But I bet I had you fooled.)

[Luciana]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Luciana,

I can understand why people weren't allowed to criticize the military, but isn't it possible to find a newspaper mention from those days about those DANGEROUS cubist-cubans?

Oh, no. There was little to no propaganda. Also, truth be told, the top officials were highly cultured men. But of course there's no accounting to what the lower ranks did.

There were censors in each newspaper's offices, and they censored so much that in many instances the headlines came out blank, because nothing appeared fast enough to substitute. Soon they learned to put weather news, obituaries and poetry in the first page. But at some point editors decided to counterattack: if a news reported was censored at the last minute, they would put up a cake recipe. The word somehow spread, and all of a sudden all of the newspapers were resorting to the same thing. At first, I'm sure people were puzzled. But soon everybody understood: each cake recipe corresponded to a censored report. And by then the amount of things censored just couldn't be hidden. When the first page of a newspaper only contains cake recipes, you can imagine how blatant censorship was. People had never fathomed how deep it was until that move from the newspaper's editors.

I'll keep digging for more references.

The dentadura/ditadura seems very likely, though.

I forgot to mention, but this word was censored in songs too.

[Segnosaur]

Originally posted by Skeptic
. Lastly, there was the case of a budding artist who covered himself with faw steaks while wearing a diaper with a picture of the American flag on it, to "symbolize the cannibalistic properties of America".

Ah well. It's "art", so it MUST be good, right?

(Okay, the last one is made up--I scribbed it from an "Onion" article titled "Artist Shocks Nation out of Bored Self-Satisfaction", or words to that effect.

But I bet I had you fooled.)

Are you sure the last one was "made up"?

See: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/canada-magazine/wv_18/11-truecolour-en.asp



Canada's official representative at the 2003 Biennale will be Jana Sterbak of Montreal, Quebec, who burst on the scene in 1991 with her notorious Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic. Made of raw meat, the dress sparked controversy when it was displayed at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
Oh, no. There was little to no propaganda.

Why not? I would think that a dictatorship would need propaganda.

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
Also, truth be told, the top officials were highly cultured men. But of course there's no accounting to what the lower ranks did.

"If only the Fuhrer knew", yes.

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
There were censors in each newspaper's offices, and they censored so much that in many instances the headlines came out blank, because nothing appeared fast enough to substitute. Soon they learned to put weather news, obituaries and poetry in the first page. But at some point editors decided to counterattack: if a news reported was censored at the last minute, they would put up a cake recipe. The word somehow spread, and all of a sudden all of the newspapers were resorting to the same thing. At first, I'm sure people were puzzled. But soon everybody understood: each cake recipe corresponded to a censored report. And by then the amount of things censored just couldn't be hidden. When the first page of a newspaper only contains cake recipes, you can imagine how blatant censorship was. People had never fathomed how deep it was until that move from the newspaper's editors.

Fascinating. So, Brazillians ate a lot of cakes during those days? ;)

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
I'll keep digging for more references.

Keep digging. Evidence, always.

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
I forgot to mention, but this word was censored in songs too.

Ditadure, I presume. Never come across it in Brazillian songs, so I guess you're right.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Western and Northern Europe has never experienced dictatorships and regimes like that. The story Luciana mentions doesn't surpise me at all.
Considering that you've spoken of the Holocaust, one would think you would have remembered Hitler.