Saturday, November 01, 2008
MUSEUM DIRECTOR FIRED
A reader sent in the story from the UK Telegraph:
Corinne Diserens, the Swiss director of the museum in Bolzano, in the mountainous north-east of Italy, was dismissed after months of controversy over the bright green, bug-eyed amphibian, which is nailed to a cross and holds a frothing mug of beer and an egg....
She had refused to remove the work by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger despite protests from the Vatican that it was blasphemous.
She said the museum had a right to artistic freedom, and kept the frog on display as originally planned from May to September.
But a majority of the museum's board of directors disagreed and instead dismissed her this week.
The official reason given by the museum was that Ms Diserens had caused a "difficult financial situation" by overspending her budget, but supporters said she was being punished for the row over the frog.
Her sacking prompted a debate on contemporary art in the German-speaking region of Alto-Adige, where a far-right party with anti-immigration views tripled its support in local elections this week, becoming the province's second most powerful political force.
Read all of it...
Sure took a long time to get it done. This blasphemous frog was in the news quite a while ago. Still, it sends a message, I suppose, even if the frog did get to stay for the entire time of exhibition.
