The Ars Homo Erotica exhibition has not even  opened yet but it has already caused a storm of controversy, which may end up in the National Museum director’s dismissal.

Today, the committee of trustees at the usually staid National Museum in Warsaw will gather to discuss whether Prof. Piotr Piotrowski, the museum’s director, will keep his job.

The controversial Ars Homo Erotica exhibition illustrates Piotrowski’s concept of a “critical museum” - or one that reinterprets the museum’s centuries-old collections from a modern point of view.

The exhibition will include 250 ancient and modern works of art from Central and Eastern Europe.

“There will be nudity and male genitals on display, but no pornography. We just want to please the audience,” said Pawel Leszkowicz, the exhibit’s curator, enthusiastically.

Among the artists whose works will be displayed are Katarzyna Kozyra, Karol Radziszewski, Wojciech Cwiertniewicz and Aleksandra Polisiewicz, as well as renowned Polish painters Jan Matejko and Jacek Malczewski.

But critics say that the director is turning a prized national asset into a sewer.

“The Director [of the National Museum] wants to turn a temple of art into a public toilet. The museum is financed from public money and cannot be a tool of demoralization in the hands of an marginal, isolated group,” RMF FM radio reports Stanislaw Pieta, conservative Law and Justice MP as saying. The MP has asked the Culture Minister to halt the exhibition.

“What’s wrong in tradition and homo erotic art? Why can’t it be displayed at a museum?”, complained Prof. Piotrowski. “We just want to take part in a public debate [on homosexuality],” he argued .

The exhibition, which is to open on 11 June at the museum through to 5 September, is expected to attract large crowds but the organizers also fear that there will be protests. (mg/pg)

Sources: KAI, PAP, wp.pl

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