The sculpture Domestikator, created by Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout, is displayed in the plaza outside the Centre Pompidou. Photo / AP
The sculpture Domestikator, created by Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout, is displayed in the plaza outside the Centre Pompidou. Photo / AP
A giant sculpture apparently showing a humanoid having sex with a four-legged creature has been deemed "too rude" for display at the Louvre museum.
However, the risqué edifice has been adopted by Paris' edgier Pompidou Centre, which insists it is "spiritual" rather than "obscene", the Daily Telegraph reports.
Domestikator, the geometric rust-red work by Dutch sculptor Joep van Lieshout, appears to resemble a box-shaped human copulating with either a box-shaped animal or perhaps another person.
It is one of 70 sculptures erected around the French capital as part of the annual International Contemporary Art Fair or FIAC.
The work, a towering 12 metres tall, was initially due to be exhibited in the Tuileries garden that runs from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde.
But the Louvre's president Jean-Luc Martinez got cold feet at the last minute.
In a letter to FIAC's organisers, he said that internet posts about the sculpture had created "an erroneous perception of this work that might be too rude for the traditional crowd in the Tuileries garden" - which welcome throngs of French and foreign tourists.
The Louvre's president Jean-Luc Martinez said the work could be misconstrued and may be 'too rude' for a Tuileries crowd. Photo / AP
The work had a "brutal aspect", he added. "It risks being misunderstood by visitors" to the gardens, where a string of other artworks are on display this week.
However, its racy nature proved no problem for the Pompidou Centre, a hub of modern art famed for its gaudy external tubing and transparent outside escalators.
Praising Van Lieshout's sculpture as "a magnificent utopia in harmony with the public space", the Pompidou's director Bernard Blistene said his museum would welcome it with open arms.
"Obscene, pornographic? Well, obscenity is everywhere, pornography, sadly, is everywhere, certainly not in this work of art," a defiant Blistene told Reuters.
"This work of art is funny, it is an obvious nod to the relationship of abstraction and figurative painting that co-exist in Dutch art in the 20th century. Spiritual yes, obscene no."
Visitors to the centre seemed mainly unfazed by the sculpture made of wood, steel and fibreglass.
"I think it really belongs anywhere," Canadian tourist Rita Sliven told AFP. "It's for people to look, to discuss, to be provoked to come out of their dream state."
Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout said he hoped the work would "generate dialogue around the questions raised by domestication in our world". Photo / AP
But Didier Casiglio, an artist from the southern city of Montpellier, was less sure.
"It would be better in the forest or in a park. Here it's a bit raw," he said.
Van Lieshout, for his part, said: "I hope that it will generate questions and dialogue around the questions raised by domestication in our world."
The debate around the work comes three years after a giant inflatable sculpture resembling a sex toy was unveiled in an upmarket Paris square home to the Ritz hotel.
