Too Naked for Berlin?
An 18th-century statue was reported for being 'sexist' - how offensive.
I must have been around 16 or so when I visited Italy for the first time. Thinking about it now, it wasn’t exactly a dream journey. It was a class trip, requiring a coach journey of well over 20 hours each way. On board were a couple of overworked teachers, two drunken bus drivers and 50-odd fellow teenagers, most of whom were excited for reasons that had little to do with the culture and heritage of the country we were about to visit.
Our first stop was Florence. We had driven all night and then some to get there when the coach finally stopped and chucked dozens of tired German kids out onto pleasantly warm Italian streets. We only had a couple of hours before we’d have to be back by the coach to travel on.
I had two items on my must-see list. Both happened to involve naked people. One was Michelangelo’s David, the other Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Dragging my then-boyfriend and two other male friends along to both earned me a lot of sniggering, but it was completely worth it.
There wasn’t enough time to see the original David in the Accademia Gallery, but seeing his replica where the original statue once had been, on the Piazza della Signoria, was all the more beautiful. Botticelli’s Birth at the Uffizi Gallery was just as stunning as I had expected.
It made me chuckle when I read many years later that Florence supposedly makes people ill with its abundance of exceptional art. There is a condition called Stendhal syndrome, also known as Florence syndrome, which comes with dizziness, an increased heart rate and fainting when people can’t cope with all the beauty in Florence. David and Birth are apparently chief culprits. In 2018, a man even suffered a heart attack from looking at the latter.
I can well believe that. Even teenage Katja’s philistine mind was completely boggled at the sight of both masterpieces. Hours of coach travel were immediately forgotten. The fact that I only had a few minutes to admire them before it was time to return to the bus didn’t take away from the experience one bit. I still recall it often.
So imagine my dismay when I read in the press this week that a German government department deemed a piece of art housed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence ‘sexist’.
The object in question is the Venus de' Medici, an ancient lifesized sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. She looks bashful, as if she’s just been surprised skinny-dipping and is making a half-arsed (pun absolutely intended) effort to cover her modesty. The version at the Uffizi is an ancient marble copy of an even more ancient bronze original.
The Venus Medici that was in the news this week is, in turn, a bronze replica of the Florence marble replica, made in the 1700s. Until last year, this copy adorned the foyer of the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Questions (which deals with complicated matters relating to the restitution of property following German reunification).
The statue was quietly removed in the summer of 2024 and transferred to Leipzig’s Grassi Museum, which was undoubtedly delighted with all the press coverage it got for that this week.
When journalists looked into the matter, they were told that an Equal Opportunities Officer had complained about poor Venus. She had reported that the ‘statue “Venus Medici” could be felt to be sexist, and this might, therefore, result in necessary action due to the Federal Equal Opportunities Act.’ The complaint resulted in the removal of the statue from the foyer – apparently without the involvement of the affected administrative body that occupies the building.
Unsurprisingly, Olaf Thormann, the director of the Grassi Museum, was delighted to receive the unexpected loan to his collection. He told the press that he ‘couldn’t understand how the Venus Medici could be regarded as sexist. [...] This alleged offensiveness is a strange interpretation of art.’ He added that ‘the female nude – just as the male one – has existed since the beginning of art history. To misconstrue this as sexism is to misunderstand all of art history and I would say even perspectives on something deeply human.’
I entirely agree. On the one hand, getting involved in ‘culture war’ issues can be incredibly tedious, especially when the issue involved seems small and blown out of proportion. One could argue the same here. Ultimately, we’re talking about one piece of art that was removed from the foyer of a minor public administration office. There was no destruction involved and in the end, the piece is probably better appreciated where it is now.
But there is something rather sinister about a chain of events in which nobody seems to have objected to the ludicrous suggestion that an ancient piece of art could be deemed in breach of a law designed to create equal rights and opportunities for men and women. How many people were in that chain from the first complaint to the removal and went ‘Yep, fair enough. That Venus stands in the way of progress. Let’s get rid of her.’?
Apart from clearly being a beautiful piece of art – the Venus Medici is one the most copied sculptures in the world – this particular version also has a fascinating history that relates directly to the Federal Office whose foyer it adorned.
This German Venus had once been a part of Hermann Göring’s extensive art collection, kept at Carinhall, his vast estate named after his first wife Carin who had died young. At the end of the war, it had been chucked into a lake together with other pieces. It was only recovered by professional divers after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Questions deals with this sort of thing: what belongs to the state, what should be given back etc., especially in regard to victims of the Nazi regime and their property in East Germany.
All that history, the aesthetics and the symbolism were reduced to vague accusations of ‘sexism’, presumably because the figure is naked. It’s easy to dismiss this as a throwaway story in the German outrage media, but if you follow the train of thought behind it to its logical conclusion, it’s anything but harmless.
Imagine the director of the Grassi Museum had taken the same view as the Equal Opportunities Officer and Venus had disappeared completely. What if other people elsewhere thought about art that way? When I studied at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, the foyer was adorned with copies of ancient sculptures. As I recall, those included many nudes. Would an empty foyer or one full of Equal-Opportunities-approved art have been more inspirational? I doubt it.
Or imagine the curators of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence took the view that their collection was full of ‘sexist’ pieces that violated Equal Opportunities legislation and began to cleanse their exhibition accordingly. I can’t even begin to contemplate that. Sure, it would put an end to cases of Stendhal syndrome, but who wants that? I certainly don’t. It was, after all, the raised heartbeat and the dizziness triggered by so much artistic beauty that made a lasting impression on me at a formative age in Florence.
But I’m not unreasonable. How about a compromise, then? Next time there is a case of ‘sexism’ caused by a female nude, put a replica of David next to her. Equal opportunities to admire ancient nudity for all, I say.
The new puritans are on the left... how ridiculous to move a statue because one person complained.
We live in crazy times where people are lining up to be offended , Florence sounds a fascinating place to visit , I’m not an art lover by any stretch but sounds like a place to visit, only problem is would probably need weeks there to fully appreciate it