Opposition slams foreign minister for removing art piece from consulate exhibition
Greece’s opposition sharply criticized Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis on Tuesday for ordering the removal of an art piece that depicted the Greek flag in pink hues from an exhibition at the country’s consulate in New York, following complaints from a far-right party in Parliament.
The work, titled “Neighborhood Guilt,” made by New York-based artist Georgia Lale, was presented in an exhibition addressing femicide and domestic violence which opened on December 15.
“The majority of victims of femicide are murdered in their houses and on their beds. Their lives end on the bed that they make every morning. Their bed sheets soak up their blood,” Lale explains in the description accompanying a photo of the work posted on her Instagram account on Monday.
During a debate about the 2024 budget in Parliament, Dimitris Natsios, leader of the nationalist, pro-Orthodoxy party Niki, held up a photo of the work and claimed it “mocks our national symbol.”
“The flag should only change color only when it is dyed red by the blood of our people’s struggles,” he said.
Speaking to Star channel on Tuesday after her work was removed, Lale said the idea to create an art piece came after the murder of 20-year-old Caroline Crouch by her husband in 2021. She then asked women in Greece to send her bed sheets.
“With these sheets I created the Greek flag when I returned to my studio in New York. And the choice of the pink color was not mine, it was of the women of Greece,” she told Star.
“I am sorry that my work was misinterpreted. The victims of femicide and domestic violence are heroes in the fight for the right to life and freedom in Greece and worldwide,” Lale said in a separate statement to real.gr.
“Art is allowed to ‘play’ even with the colors of national symbols when it wants to convey a message – from its opposition to racism to domestic violence,” said SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis.
Nasos Iliopoulos, a lawmaker from the New Left (a SYRIZA splinter roup), accused the government of legitimizing the far-right. “Fascists do not put up with anything and Mr Gerapetritis had to humor them. He ordered the work to be taken down. The government constantly succumbs to the pressures of the far right,” he said. “It would be good for the government to do something substantial to combat gender-based violence, instead of targeting a work of art.”
The exhibition is part of the Carte Blanche Project, a pilot artist showcase program conceived and presented by the Consulate General of Greece in New York that aims to showcase the work of artists from Greece who live and/or work in New York.
The event will run through January 31st, 2024.
