 The director of an art show in Athens, Greece was jailed on charges of obscenity and an attack on national symbols. The material in question was a video of a woman masturbating to the Greek National Anthem by Greek-American artist, Eva Stefani.
According to the article in the Australian newspaper, Perth Now:
After a visitor reported the video to police, Art Athina director, Michalis Argyros, was arrested and charged.
He spent the night behind bars, provoking an outcry from local artists, who mobilized to defend him.
Last week, the Greek court acquitted Argyros on all charges, citing freedom of expression. Apparently, the Greek Orthodox Church and right-wing political parties of Greece actively pursue works of art with even the slightest religious iconography or national symbolism.
Perth Now reports that:
At his [Michalis Argyros, Art Athina director] trial yesterday, the court ruled against the prosecutor, who had argued the video made no sense and that "Nudity is a work of art only in Renaissance paintings", the Eleftherotypia newspaper reported.
I'm not an art scholar, but I know that classical Greek art, which most of us studied in school to some extent, is rooted in nudity. Much of the ancient art of Greece includes the nude male form: Male genitalia are a common component of sculpture, painting, murals, etc. Cecil Adams wrote an interesting reader response on The Straight Dope about male virility as part of the Greek art tradition. However, women were not seen as equals during the birth of Western Civilization, and there is very little art dedicated to the female form. Perhaps the Art Athina case isn't really about nudity or nationalism, but the true issue is female masturbation.
[The article image is artwork on a Greek cup dating from circa 480 BC, depicting sexual relations between an adult and a male youth. "That the ancients thought there was nothing wrong with such relations is evidenced by the fact that scenes such as this were depicted on dinnerware," courtesy of Hypatia-lovers.com]
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