Porno posters’ cause uproar in Europe
* Images show naked models wearing masks of Bush, Chirac and Queen Elizabeth stimulating a sex act
VIENNA: Spoof posters depicting Britain’s Queen Elizabeth having sex with the US and French presidents and displayed across Vienna are causing embarassment just days ahead of Austria’s taking over the EU presidency.
The images showed two naked female models wearing masks of President George W Bush and the queen, and a male model with a President Jacques Chirac mask, positioned as if they were having sex.
Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel appealed to the artists to withdraw the images, according to a spokeswoman quoted by the APA news agency.
Part of a series called “euroPART” and created by artists from all 25 member countries of the European Union, the posters were meant to “reflect on the different social, historical and political developments in Europe”, said art project 25peaces, which commissioned the posters. 25peaces received 1 million euros ($1.2 million) of funding from the Austrian government for the works.
But the project, 150 images only three of which had sexual overtones, caused uproar in the media and among politicians.
Austria is due to take over the revolving EU presidency for six months on January 1. The poster series is supposed to be shown on 400 rolling boards until the end of January. Austrian tabloid Kronen-Zeitung - read by half of Austria’s population every day and with a track record of attacking modern art in public spaces - started the furore Wednesday, attacking the “porno posters” and calling for them to be removed.
Opposition politicians from the left-wing social democrats chimed in, also focussing on a second poster from the series, which shows the lower body of a woman with her legs spread and the EU’s symbol - a circle of yellow stars - on her slip.
“Women are being displayed in sexist, demeaning manner on those posters, and the leaders Chirac, Bush and the English Queen are degraded,” said social democrat Barbara Prammer, deputy president of Austria’s parliament, in a statement.
25peaces has received 1 million euros ($1.2 million) in sponsoring from Austria’s government earlier this year but the posters had not been known to Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel before being displayed, a spokeswoman told news agency APA.
While Kronen-Zeitung said the posters would be pulled on Schuessel’s orders, the spokeswoman said the chancellor had no power over the artists, but had appealed to them to withdraw them. reuters
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