Art in France subjected to Political censorship

Today’s tale comes from one of the rare newspapers in France that doesn’t belong to one of Little Nicky’s bosom friends. The newspaper is “Liberation”, it’s all in the name. The story in the edition for Thursday 11th February is about an exhibition at the prestigious Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-Arts de Paris.

The exhibition, called The Seven Day Weekend, brings together work from the Royal College of Art in London, from LASALLE College of the Arts de Singapore, and of course Paris. Siu-lan Ko, a Chinese installation artist had her work approved in January. It consisted of banners hung on the front of the building with words parodying one of Nicky’s campaign slogans, “Work more, earn more”. She chose Work, Earn, More, and Less. It read, “Work more earn less” or, “Work less earn more” according to how you approached the piece.
Siu-lan Ko said, “Last night I got an email from the exhibition curator, Clare Carolin of the Royal College of Art”. She explained that , Henry-Claude Cousseau Directeur of the Ecole des beaux-Arts, considered that the Minister of Education might be offended and that as he would soon be fixing the school’s budget, the work was not appropriate.
Clare Carolin said she was opposed to the censorship felt insulted by it and that as Curator of the Exhibition she had not even been consulted. She added that the artist had not even been informed when the installation was removed on Wednesday.
Siu-lan Ko is an International Artist who specialises in using political slogans. “Coming from China”, she said, “I cannot understand this brutal censorship in France particularly in one of the oldest schools of art which is supposed to encourage freedom of expression. It shows the degree of political conservatism and the extent of the fear Sarkozy provokes”. The artist said she would consider court action if her work was not restored to its place in the exhibition before the opening today, Friday 12th February.