Dirty Corner in Versailles Vandalized
Sexual Symbol by Sculptor Anish Kapoor Getting Cleaned Up
It seems that controversial, and sexual, art is once again getting people riled up in France.
The latest victim of critics vandalism is “Dirty Corner” by sculptor Anish Kapoor. While the artist claims he has never referred to the piece as “The Queen” many media outlets have quoted him as stating the piece represents a queen baring her private parts.
Perhaps that interpretation combined with the location, the former home of Marie Antoinette, a queen famous for her insensitivity to the public, was more than the critics could stand.
Read more and let us know your thoughts on the sculpture or the vandals:
PARIS — Vandals spray-painted an enormous, curved sculpture in the garden of the 17th-century palace of Versailles on Wednesday that its creator, Anish Kapoor, had once characterized as a sexual symbol of the “vagina of a queen taking power.”
Authorities moved quickly to clean the yellow paint from the 200-foot-long steel work, which is part of a free exhibition at the French palace that started June 9 and will end in November. The sculpture, titled “Dirty Corner,” is surrounded by large, jagged rocks, some painted in red.
But this week, Mr. Kapoor insisted in the French media that he had never referred to the sculpture by the words “The Queen.” He drew a distinction from when he described the work in an earlier interview as symbolizing “the vagina of a queen” or as “a big queen sitting in court, displaying herself to her courtiers.”
“Calling ‘Dirty Corner’ the queen’s vagina is a way to belittle my work,” he said after it was vandalized. “These are not my words. This is also not the way I think.”
By Thursday afternoon, authorities said that workers were still cleaning the sculpture in the middle of Versailles, once home to France’s 18th-century queen, Marie Antoinette.
Read the entire article by Doreen Carvajal at ArtsBeat
Photoby Charles Platiau/Reuters
