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Two more paintings with much more obviously exposed parts of female bodies were left in a car. At first nobody said anything and I went back to the car to bring my other two paintings after filling my exhibition papers. A minute after I went outside, someone was already running to get me, shouting: “Alla! We cannot exhibit nudity in a bank!” (that’s where the show was).
Fair enough, I thought, and I took this painting back into the car and went home, just to return back again with three perfectly modest landscapes. No nudity.
Next day, at the reception, I was talking to the artists who were receiving submissions the night before. They told me: “Of course, your painting could not be acceptable. It had an exposed, erect penis”…..?????
Imagine my amused face… “Excuse me? What penis? Where?”… “Well, we saw it yesterday”, the ladies told me. Then the discussion unfolded, in which I explained to them that not only I did not paint any penis there, but I was not so completely out of my mind to bring the painting with a penis to a bank if there was one. They were a bit confused, but insisted they saw a penis for sure. Although, as one of the ladies noted, there were also two male artists present at that time, who said they did not see a penis…. “Aha! I said, so it means you saw there something what OTHER people did not see?! What do you think, I said, would Freud said about that?”
Well, my friends, although this is a story from a past, please, take a good look at this painting now. What are you seeing? Please, tell me if you see a penis on it or not.
Alla's Blog 