Viennese demand a fig leaf
City gets an eyeful and museum gets an earful over posters for show on male nudity.
VIENNA — Naked men of all sizes and shapes are appearing on Vienna kiosks as a prestigious museum kicks off an exhibit of male nudity.
But outside the exhibition, organizers are being forced into cover-up mode after a storm of complaints that the posters are offensive.
In a show titled “Nude Men From 1800 to Today,” the Leopold Museum opened its doors Friday to examine how artists have dealt with the theme of male nudity over the centuries.
“Mr. Big” — a more-than-12-foot-high full-frontal photo mounted on plywood and depicting a naked young man in an indolent sprawl — is set up near the museum entrance, lest there be any doubt what visitors are about to see.
Inside, about 300 artworks are on display, including a photograph that is raising the ire of Viennese. Created by French artists Pierre & Gilles, “Vive La France” shows three young, athletic men of different races wearing nothing but blue, white and red socks and soccer shoes.
No visitors were complaining Friday as they filed past that photo and even more graphic examples of male nudity, including some depictions of sex acts.
“I’ve seen worse on latenight TV,” said Franz Steiner, 27, as he left the show.
Not so in the city. Posters of the three sock-wearing men were given impromptu “fig leafs” — lines of red tape covering their private parts.
The complaints clearly caught the museum by surprise.
Vienna’s turn-of-the-century decadence allowed erotic artists such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt to f lourish, and the city these days shows complacent acceptance of displays of the flesh.
Lingerie ads are racy, and one popular daily newspaper regularly features pictures of half-naked women.
But museum officials say they have received a flood of complaints, mostly from outlying districts heavily populated by new immigrants from Muslim countries.
Museum Director Tobias Natter said the flap serves to point out “that nobody gets offended by naked women, but with naked men, yes.”
A poster near a school was removed when parents complained.
“I can understand women with children who think that this is too wild, when the kids keep asking questions,” said Susanne Eigner, a woman in her 20s standing next to a still-uncovered poster.
Other reactions have been positive.
“I like that we get to see naked men for a change,” said Veronika Kren as she paused from pushing her groceries-laden bike. “We have to look at naked women all the time and now I find it quite interesting to see something different — and especially the reaction of the men.”
The museum is making the most of the controversy. Natter said he hoped the poster would spark lively debate .
“Some people will say: ‘What a shame. I want to see what’s under that,’ ” he said about the red tape.
“Others will say: ‘Let’s go to the museum. There we can see the original.’ And some will say: ‘That’s good. I don’t want to see that in the public space.’
“It’s about making people aware,” he said.