This Is Me (Who Am I) by Marie White

The modesty of a nude sculpture has been hidden by frosted glass in a gallery’s window after complaints led to police intervention.
Police said the model at the A Gallery, in Wimbledon, south-west London, was deemed offensive under the Indecent Displays Act 1991.

Artist Marie White, 24, said she did not intend the piece, entitled This Is Me (Who Am I), to cause offence.

Scotland Yard said officers gave a man and woman “advice” at the gallery.

Ms White, a student at the Wimbledon School of Art, said: “She’s not posing in a lewd, crude way so the reaction of males that they can’t view a nude sculpture and not imprint the sexual aspect onto her, I find that quite surprising really.

[From BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Artist’s naked ambition censored ]

it amazes me that something like this actually warrants a visit from the cops. don’t they have something better to do? I’m lucky enough to have A Gallery and their director in my contacts so I asked Fraser Kee Scott for his opinion on the matter.

Personally I find it strange that you can have naked breasts on page 3 of the biggest selling paper in England, but can’t put a nude sculpture in a window. If you hide something and insist it is hidden then it becomes a strange and curious thing – and to do that to something 1/2 of the people on Earth have – breasts – then that causes trouble.

This piece is entirely non sexual. in fact, it’s no more arousing than a storefront dummy that is in the process of being dressed. it’s an interesting concept and I would like to see more of the piece. England is very strange in it’s censorship laws. there seem to be many disparate and opposing views. from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I hope that the frosted glass will enable the gallery more walk in traffic, people intrigued by the censorship, what is obscured and what it all means. Perhaps the censorship will, in fact, create the opposite effect- I can always hope!