Culture

Police shut down photo exhibition of naked natural women because they’re ‘indecent’

‘Indecent’ or just plain art?

Art have different kinds and forms and people are very creative when it comes to making their art. They are expressive, emotional and imaginative, and we give them credit for being so. We don’t want to take them for granted, and they willingly showcase their art for the world to see. And we are not a bit surprised to see something unnatural and unfamiliar in some cases. They have all come from minds of the artists that are ready to express their feelings on any medium that they deem necessary. And when contemporary art is something that we are unable to get a hold of just yet, we see the different things that we are all unfamiliar with. It’s the things that we don’t do and the things that we don’t accept and things that we usually just brush off. But how far can contemporary go, and how far can we actually start to see things as they are portrayed, not as just plain things that we probably don’t want to see.

According to Independent, an art exhibition has been brought down by police because they deem the images as ‘indecent’. Photographer Mathilde Grafstrom is responsible for the gallery and said that she has been taking photos of naked women as an expression and to empower. “I take my photos to show young women that they are more beautiful than they think. I show the woman that she is beautiful, and that way I can help her to accept herself,” she told Denmark’s TV2. This is an art wherein the artist is expressing her thoughts and feelings in the pictures that she takes. But Police in has denied her to display her gallery in Copenhagen’s Nytorv Square and it was followed by her filing a complaint, stating that it was because that the police sees her art as ‘offensive’ rather than an art where she expresses her insecurities.

“It’s totally reprehensible. Total suppression of my art,” she said. “I don’t understand that my pictures can be offensive. They show something you see when you change clothes at a swimming pool.” She was horrified to see that someone would not acknowledge her art. Well, it was maybe because the photographs are explicit and may resemble that of pornography. She even brought to light the fact that a plastic surgery clinic is able to display a photograph of breasts and they haven’t been banned or anything similar.

“Nygart’s [the surgery’s] breasts are plastic. My photos are an aesthetic expression. It is shocking that my pictures are obscene, while advertising is not,” she added. Having been able to express her art and exhibit it to the public is definitely making her upset.

“I love to shoot my models naked. But sometimes it can be difficult because I also fight with my own problems; I think my hips and breasts are too small,” she writes on her website.

“Sometimes when my boyfriend is looking at my body, I think that I’m unattractive. But then I can see that it’s all the negative thoughts about my body that makes me less beautiful and unfree.”

“When we don’t make ourselves small, boring and ugly with our own thoughts, we shine naturally of beauty, life and joy.”