The controversy over a painting by Miriam Cahn continues in court

By wanting to protect the freedom of creation, has Rima Abdul Malak, reluctantly, opened the way to the judicialization of the controversy surrounding the artist Miriam Cahn? In response, on March 21, to Caroline Parmentier (National Rally, RN), MP for Pas-de-Calais who accused the Swiss painter of advocating pedocrime through her painting entitled Fuck abstraction!in which she represents a scene of forced fellatio between a man and a frail kneeling figure, the Minister of Culture had declared: “It is neither for a minister nor for a parliamentarian to qualify a criminal offence. This is the role of justice. »

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It is precisely at the administrative court of Paris that the controversy rebounded, Monday, March 27. Six associations (Jurists for childhood, Childhood sharing, Pornostop, Facing incest, Innocence in danger and the Feminist collective against rape) seized the judge for interim release. Invoking article 227-23 of the penal code, they demand the removal without delay of the painting, or, failing that, the prohibition of access of minors to the room where it is hung. “Each hour that passes aggravates the attack on the best interests of the child, by endangering the minors confronted with the exposure”writes in her request the lawyer Adeline Le Gouvello, who represents Jurists for Children.

The affair, which broke out in early March on far-right social networks and led to a petition demanding the withdrawal of the work, seemed however to have been cleared up by the press release from the Palais de Tokyo dated March 21, in which Miriam Cahn had said that her work did not feature any children.

Slender morphology

” This paintingspecifies the septuagenarian artist, deals with how sexuality is used as a weapon of war, as a crime against humanity. The contrast between the two bodies depicts the bodily power of the oppressor and the fragility of the oppressed kneeling and emaciated by war. » At his request, an explanatory text has even been added next to the work. Mediators are also available to explain the work orally. In the process, the Observatory for the freedom of creation had rebounded by specifying that the “European Court of Human Rights constantly reminds us that the freedoms of expression and creation are there to protect what shocks and disturbs, and not what is consensual”.

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Children’s lawyers do not hear it that way, and believe that the presence of this painting is a “serious, characterized, irremediable attack on a fundamental freedom, that of the best interests of the child”. “There is no question to ask, the image is reprehensible”, struck Adeline Le Gouvello. For her, no doubt, by her slender morphology, the character represented is necessarily a minor. ” Besides, adds the lawyer, If the Palais de Tokyo has set up mediators and a warning message, it is because it is well aware that it has shown a work that poses a problem. »

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