Crocheted Nudity Must be Stopped!

Despite the ridiculously lame title, this article in today's WaPo is interesting. My take on it is that it is about how the management of a building had to pretend to give space to art but when push comes to shove they can't handle anything remotely controversial.

An exhibit called Not the Knitting You Know: Sculptural Knitting and Crochet featured some crocheted nude figures. Someone called John Shenefield, a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, didn't like them and assumed that delicate women would be offended by this shocking display of the human form. I guess in his world no woman has ever seen a nude body.

The article says:

"I thought instantly that there will be women in this organization who will be offended because of the exposed genitalia and the exaggeration of the female form." His fears were confirmed as soon as he got to his office: People were discussing the exhibition in a "beehive of activity . . . and the initial reaction was quite a lot of unhappiness, particularly among female employees and partners." The firm was also concerned about offending clients and visitors who might assume it sponsors the exhibition.

Now I am imagining that this guy flipped out and went into the office and asked people if they were offended. Not wanting to piss off the boss they said yes. I mean really, what were these women really seeing? How graphic and "shocking" can crocheted nudes, made by a schoolteacher and described as "playful" really be?

Shenefield says this is the first time the firm has complained about an exhibition and that the "shock effect" of Sung's art in its original form should have precluded its installation. "Common sense would suggest that perfectly normal human beings would rather not face that," he says.

Oh really? Common sense tells me that perfectly normal human beings don't panic at the sight of other perfectly normal human beings just because they happen to be unclothed.

Here is a link to the shocking work in question. Suffice it to say I just don't get it.

So what did I, a textile artist who frowns on censorship do? I looked Shenefield up online, got his telephone number and address, read his bio, shook my head that he can argue in front of the Supreme Court but not look at a fake naked person and left him a message on voice mail.

I said I was very disappointed that a grown man had this sort of reaction to art and I hoped that one day he was able to look back at this and learn a valuable lesson.

A closing remark from Mr. Shenefield:

"I'm not an art critic," Shenefield says, "but none of this was the Venus de Milo."