Polish protestors eat bananas to protest government censorship of artwork

A video installation of a young woman eating a banana was removed from Warsaw’s National Museum under claims it could ‘irritate sensitive young people’

(AP)

Protestors gathered outside Warsaw‘s National Museum and ate bananas to protest against what they called government censorship, after an artwork featuring the fruit was removed under claims it was improper.

The 1973 video installation Consumer Art, by Natalia LL, depicts a young woman eating the fruit. It had been a part of the National Museum’s display for many years, but was removed last week after the new museum head, Jerzy Miziolek, was summoned to the Ministry of Culture.

Artists and opposition politicians supported the protest by posting images of themselves eating bananas. Actress Magdalena Cielecka posed for a photo where she pointed a banana at her head like a gun, telling the Associated Press: “An artist, to create, must be free.”

Another 2005 video, by Katarzyna Kozyra, showing a woman walking two men, dressed as dogs, on a lead, was also removed.

Mr Miziolek, who was appointed by the right-wing government last November, told the Onet.pl portal that he was “opposed to showing works that could irritate sensitive young people” and suggested there had been visitor complaints.

He said he appreciated the role of both artists in Polish culture, but that the gallery’s limited space required “creative changes” to its displays.

Polish actress Magdalena Cielecka aims a banana like a gun at her head to protest the removal of an artwork from the National Museum in Warsaw (AP Photo/Dario Salina)

On Monday, Mr Miziolek announced that the works would be reinstated, but only until 6 May, when the whole museum was due for reorganisation. He denied that there was any pressure on the museum to return the artworks.

Culture Minister Piotr Glinski has faced repeated criticism in the past, including for cutting subsidies to art festivals that planned to show controversial plays with Catholic themes, firing a popular theatre director who criticised him, and firing the director of a World War II museum under claims its displays did not show Poland’s suffering or heroism enough.