"Koran with a Buddha Shape Carved Into It"

"Koran with a Buddha Shape Carved Into It"



"Fear Factor" (Emily Hall, The Stranger, from the 2003/01/01-08 issue)
"By the day after Christmas, five people had asked me what happened to Kurt Geissel's work at Roq la Rue. The piece - a Koran with a Buddha shape carved into it (a reference to the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban) and bearing the inscription vita brevis, ars lunga, God is Sorry - was removed after the opening of Gods and Monsters, an irreverent look at religion (Morticia as Venus, Frankenstein as Christ, etc.). ...
She decided not to include it in her article, largely because she thought it irresponsible to feature such a work - and she told Roq la Rue owner Kirsten Anderson so. "I was afraid to publicize it, because Kirsten sits there alone in the gallery," Hackett said. "It's a particular kind of flag to a tiny group of people." Anderson, after talking to a lot of people and thinking it over, asked Geissel to remove the work - which he did, albeit unhappily. "I don't blame her," Geissel told me. 'But if you're afraid to show work because of what some nitwits have done, then the nitwits have too much power.'"

via http://watch.windsofchange.net/03_0105_0112.htm