Museum Visitors Won't Be Allowed To View Nude Bush Painting

[matcom]

<snip>

Pic at below link:
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I16611-2004Oct07

To the troubled City Museum of Washington, an exhibition by local artists seemed just the hip solution to attract a new, desperately needed audience.

But instead "Funky Furniture," a show of painted living room pieces, has been evicted by the museum because some of the artists' themes were considered unsuitable.

The furniture display, a project organized by Art-O-Matic 2004, a volunteer confederation of mainly local artists, was moved into the museum last weekend and was scheduled to open this month. The theme was a takeoff on the museum's desire to be known as "the city's living room."

One artist decorated a church pew with pictures and quotes to allege that President Ronald Reagan was indifferent to the AIDS crisis. Another took an end table and plastered it with drug paraphernalia and a quote from former mayor Marion Barry, who was jailed for drug possession. Another created a coffee-table-size dictionary with Washington entries, such as "A Is for Anthrax" and "G Is for Gentrification," illustrated by a drawing of a white male urinating on African American residents.

And what is a living room without a prominent painting? Kayti Didriksen, a local artist, decided to paint President Bush and Vice President Cheney in the well-known style of Manet's "Olympia." Bush is nude and reclining on a chaise longue, and Cheney, in a suit and tie, is holding a velvet pillow with a crown topped by an oil rig.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16658-2004Oct7.html

[tuvor]

1. Dammit, I just ate breakfast.

Thanks a lot.

[UTUSN]

2. Thanks. This Is off to My Two Wingnut Tormentors

(whom I torment back). They will be outraged at my disrespect for Shrub.

[arwalden]

3. Olympia

[UTUSN]

4. Another Historical Reference