A video of a member of the Greek Parliament taking down and smashing exhibits in the Athens National Gallery has emerged. In the footage, the right-wing member of the populist party Niki (Victory), Nikolaos Papadopoulos, can be been seen grabbing the two works and throwing them to the floor.
The incident, which occurred on Monday, prompted a debate in the public discourse as media pundits and social commentators argued over the limits of freedom of artistic expression vis-à-vis insulting religious beliefs.
The lawmaker was sanctioned with a formal censure for unparliamentary behavior, a penalty that entails a 50% reduction in his parliamentary remuneration for one month.
Papadopoulos shattered protective panel glass and seized artworks while shouting that they were “offensive to religion.” Initially detained within the National Gallery, he was later released.
In a letter he released later, the MP argued that the National Gallery was displaying “a work by a Greek artist that flagrantly offends the Orthodox Christian faith, directly insulting the sacred figures of the Virgin Mary and Christ, who are depicted in a distorted manner.”
The exhibition in question, titled The Allure of the Bizarre – A Survey of Greek Art, is inspired by the works of Francisco Goya. As the site of the Athens National Gallery explains: “This companion exhibition brings together ten Greek artists—including the surreal figurations of Dionysis Kavallieratos and Marianna Ignataki’s phantasmagoric drawings—who carry forward Goya’s fascination with the hybrid and grotesque. The juxtaposition offers a rare opportunity to trace the lineage of artistic subversion from eighteenth-century Spain to present-day Athens, demonstrating how the master’s dark imaginings continue to resonate in our own uncertain times.”
