On hunger strike for blasphemous museum show
Italian bishops and government representatives think Kippenberg’s ‘Zuerst die Füße’ is provocative.
A one-metre high sculpture of a crucified frog, holding a mug of beer and an egg, at a modern art museum in Italy has stirred controversy in the predominantly Roman Catholic city of Bolzano. ‘Zuerst die Füße’ by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger is part of an exhibition at Bolzano’s Museion, which opened last May.
Kippenberg, who died in 1997 aged 44, was a painter, sculptor and photographer. Several exhibitions of his work have been held posthumously, including a show at the Tate Modern in London in 2006. His alter ego “Fred the Frog”, who appears on canvas and in sculpture alike, is at the same time a comic stand-in for Jesus, and as a spoof on all religious fervor. In this case Fred the Frog is hammered (literally and figuratively) to a crucifix with a beer stein in his hand.
No matter his cult hero status, the controversy around his sculpture continues unabated. As Der Standard reports, Franz Pahl—an elected government representative for the South Tyrol regional government—is continuing a hunger strike to protest the work’s continued exhibition at the museum’s new facilities According to the newspaper, Pahl promises to end his strike only when the sculpture is removed.
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