“Komm, Frau”

In following the news surrounding the art world, I find myself quite often surprised by the amount of backlash that artists and museums receive when the art they create or support stirs controversy or discomfort. And even more surprising, to read about artists facing criminal charges and prison time for speaking to issues that should and need to be addressed. Is freedom of speech not in play these days?

The brief appearance of a concrete sculpture in Gdansk, Poland on October 12, 2013 depicting a Red Army soldier raping a pregnant woman has sparked heated controversy and a very upset Polish and Russian government. Erected without permission next to a Soviet tank, a communist-era memorial to Red Army soldiers who liberated the city from the Nazi’s in 1945, a sculpture finds its way into the public arena as a Red Army soldier kneeling between the legs of a fully pregnant woman lying on the ground, his left hand pulling at her hair and his right hand holding a gun in her mouth. The artist, Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk, who created the sculpture to address the tragedy and suffering of rape victims by Soviet soldiers during the last months of the war, is now facing 2 years in prison for “inciting racial or national hatred,” according to an article in Speigel Online.

The title of the piece, “Komm, Frau,” a German phrase meaning “Come, Woman,” draws mass attention to what has been a largely hushed subject of the crimes committed by the Red Army during World War II when German women, as well as Russians and Poles who had been Nazi prisoners, were raped during the last months of the war. This speaks not only to the horrors of Russian history, but further, to the victims of rape across the world. From the Nanking Massacre to the rape of Japanese women during the U.S. Occupation following the end of World War II, there has been little to no discussion or acknowledgement of these largely taboo topics in our history. Would an exhibition addressing these rather hushed subjects be successful? Accepted? Or received with opposition?

Although there is a growing attention given to controversial issues surrounding gender, sex, racial discrimination, etc., some of the most acclaimed museums who have attempted to educate the public and rid the “taboo” out of our less than proud histories in an acknowledgement of the wrong and the importance of this understanding as critical to the betterment of our society and cultures around the world have been met, at times, with opposition. This begs the question…Would an exhibition that displayed “Komm, Frau,” for example, and other art that speaks to issues like this have a place in a museum? In a gallery space?

Although museum’s like the Brooklyn Museum of Art and its controversial exhibition Sensation, as Lowry states, which was received with much attack, particularly from the mayor of New York, leaving the museum to “fight” to keep its doors open, “the museum’s protection under the First Amendment was never in doubt, as was clear from extensive pre-existing case law, and like every other major paper the New York Times defended Brooklyn’s right to present the exhibition.” Despite public protection under the First Amendment, the U.S. has had its fair share of challenges with respect to controversial art and exhibitions.

Museums and artists alike have met with equally forceful opposition from the public at times, as in the case of the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum and its representation of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. Although we would like to think that we have moved passed the failures, horrors, and dark moments of our history, and have accepted and acknowledged what has transpired and how evolved we have become, the U.S., as with the rest of the world, refuses to accept and acknowledge wrongdoing on their own part. The Enola Gay, which spoke to the reality of the B-29’s involvement in the horror of the atom bomb and its mass obliteration of men, women and children in Japan, was met with continued opposition and criticism by the American legion, members of Congress and World War II veterans who were unsatisfied with the museum’s representation of what transpired during the war. And though they were not “forced” to shut down, the backlash and public opposition left little room for the museum to continue, resulting in the closure of the exhibit.

Will we ever be truly ready for truth?

“’Pseudo-Art’: Russian Ambassador Slams Wartime Rape Sculpture.” http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/russia-slams-sculpture-of-soviet-soldier-raping-woman-in-gdansk-a-928492.html

Lowry, Glenn. “A Deontological Approach.”   

Gallagher, Edward. “The Enola Gay Controversy.” http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/enola/r2/