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These Buildings Were Too Sexy for the Louvre

The work apparently symbolizes "the power of humanity over the world" and was set to be installed right next to a playground.
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Photo via the Atelier Van Lieshout collective's website

The Louvre has decided to boot a 40-foot-tall, bright red structure that was going to be displayed at the museum's annual public art festival all because it depicts two figures getting it on doggy-style.

According to the New York Times, the Atelier Van Lieshout art collective's "Domestikator" was slated to leave its home in Germany and stand erect in the Louvre's Tuileries Gardens in October. That was until some members on the committees planning this year's Fiac contemporary art fair saw the structure's suggestive design and decide to withdraw its invite.

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"Online commentaries point out this work has a brutal aspect," the Louvre's director, Jean-Luc Martinez, wrote in a letter about the installation. "It risks being misunderstood by visitors to the gardens."

Now the Dutch collective's founder, Joep van Lieshout, is pretty pissed his sexy geometric shapes won't get a chance to smang in Paris.

"This is something that should not happen," van Lieshout told the Times. "A museum should be an open place for communication."

According to the collective's website, the giant sculpture is supposed to symbolize "the power of humanity over the world," as well as "one of the last remaining taboos"—bestiality. Lofty ideals aside, those who campaigned to keep the sculpture from going on display say it's just too graphic for the venue. According to the Times, museum officials were a little wary of the fact that the industrial sex palace would set up shop right next to a playground.

"The piece itself, it's not really very explicit," Lieshout told the Times. "It's a very abstracted shape. There are no genitals. It's pretty innocent."

To Lieshout's credit, there are a whole lot of boobs, butts, and peens already on display within the Louvre's walls. Apparently the museum didn't have a problem with this deeply weird painting of a woman pinching her sister's nipple.

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