The painting "Fuck abstraction!" has been on display since the middle of February. It shows a person with their hands tied behind their back being forced to have oral sex with a powerful guy with no face. Critics have said that the picture shows a child as the victim, but Cahn has denied this and said that it shows rape as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity. Several groups that fight for children's rights said that the picture was child pornography and asked that it be taken down. But when they tried to get it taken away, the French courts said no.
Sunday, a guy "deliberately degraded" the work "by projecting paint" in purple, the museum told AFP. A source close to the case said that the man, who was old, didn't like how the picture showed the sexual relationship between a child and an adult, but he wasn't part of an activist group. He was "immediately caught by security agents and taken away by police," the museum said, adding that it would file a report for damage to property and blocking freedom of speech. In a statement, Cultural Minister Rima Abdul Malak said that the artwork, as it was shown here, had been given permission by the court system to be shown to the public. Guillaume Desanges, president of the Palais de Tokyo, which aims to "support art... with enthusiasm, awareness, and responsibility toward all audiences," said, "We regret the extreme effects of this controversy." "In agreement with the artist, the Palais de Tokyo will continue to show the painting and the exhibition," which has had 80,000 visitors, "with signs of the damage until the end of the season on May 14," it said in a statement.
In April, the Conseil d'Etat, France's top administrative court, threw out a lawsuit that tried to get the painting taken down. Since the painting was on display in an art gallery "along with detailed contextual information, it does not seriously or clearly harm the best interests of the child or the dignity of the human person," the court decided. In March, the museum released a statement from the artist in response to criticisms of the work. "They are not children," Cahn said again and again. She also said, "This painting is about how sexuality is used as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity."
Selena Mattei