An art gallery in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg has censored nude paintings over what organizers called parents’ concerns for children, the 360 TV news channel reported.
The five-day art exhibition displayed a painting of the naked Roman goddess Venus with a small curtain covering her entire body below the shoulders. Stickers were also strategically placed on two paintings of the naked Margarita from Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic Soviet novel “The Master and Margarita.”
“In my 20 years of art exhibitions, this is the first time I’m encountering this,” artist Vadim Tuzulukov told 360 TV on Saturday.
“This gallery has been running for 11 years, and parents have in the past asked us to cover up nudity,” said gallery director Andrei Chaynikov.
The stickers were removed Saturday ahead of the exhibition’s last day, Salavat Fazlitdinov, the gallery’s art director, told the Yekaterinburg-based Znak.com news website.
The artists who displayed the three nude paintings were unaware that the exhibit was open to visitors of all ages, gallery organizer Valentina Kovalyova said in a video shared by Fazlitdinov on Monday.
“We asked the artists not to remove the paintings because they’re beautifully done, but to put stickers on spots that small children don’t have to see yet,” Kovalyova said.
Commenting on the decision to display the uncensored works, she said: “They’re much more intriguing with stickers.”
