'Nipplegate': Male torso rejected from corporate exhibition
A Melbourne artist has expressed his disappointment at having a sculpture rejected from a corporate exhibition because it depicts a man's bare chest.
Allan Goedecke recently submitted a bust to the Victorian sculptors association's annual exhibition, soon to be showing Melbourne's Collins Square complex in Docklands. However he and several others had their pieces knocked-back on the grounds of nudity and, in some cases, for being too political in nature. Mr Goedecke is baffled by the decision given his sculpture depicted a man's head, shoulders and chest.
"I just find it unbelievable," he said. "Male chests are not taboo. Everyone I've told about this has just laughed uproariously. They thought I was joking. A couple of people have called it 'nipplegate' to express the kind of absurdity of the situation.
"I do recall in the 1960s David Jones had a statue of Michelangelo's David and they covered the penis with a fig leaf or something. But even back then they didn't cover the nipples."
Mr Goedecke said the human body has been explored in art for centuries and said there was nothing offensive about his sculpture.
"What worries me is when corporations or when someone bans something from display in the public arena, really what they're doing is imposing their subjective value system on all of us," he said. "Other organisations could adopt these sorts of bans. That would be very worrying."
A spokesman from Collin Square's owner, Walker Corporation, stressed that the building was a privately-owned commercial complex and not a designated art space.
"With more than 20,000 workers and families from a wide variety of cultures and religious beliefs working in and visiting Collins Square every day, the [sculptors] association agreed to the following parameters before the space was made available to it: no nudity, no political statements, no racism or material that expresses extreme hate."
Collins Square's tenants include professional services firms KPMG and Marsh & McLennan, as well as the Australian Passport Office and publisher Penguin Random House.
In an email from Tuesday, July 2, a Collins Square spokeswoman told the Association of Sculptors of Victoria the artworks must have a "professional tone".
The association's president, Yvonne Monik, said while rejection could be "heartbreaking" for artists, venues had every right to say no to certain sculptures. She said the affected artists were told they could still have their work put up for sale on opening night and could submit another piece for the main exhibition.
"We’ve had rejections before at other venues regarding nudity," she said. "So this is not the first time this has happened."