back to article Vicious vandals violate voluminous Versailles vagina

Artist Anish Kapoor has decried French "intolerance" towards art, after vandals attacked his vast vagina sculpture in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. The provocative work – officially dubbed "Dirty Corner", but known popularly as the "Queen's Vagina" – was discovered damaged by yellow paint on Wednesday morning. …

  1. Tromos

    Get rid of it altogether.

    It isn't so much the artwork I dislike as the placement. Totally inappropriate as is the blue cock in London's Trafalgar square.

    1. theModge

      Gaint blue cock

      1. The giant blue cock has gone.

      2. What was wrong with it? How reverential do we need to be of our public spaces? It's only a sculpture, it's not like they painted all surrounding buildings red, white and blue.

      Actually on the topic of the Queen's Vagina I confess the picture leaves me unconvinced,l but then it's only a picture - I suppose it could be better in person.

      I would however argue that if you were sensitive on the topic of having your work vandalised, public sculpture design is not the job for you! People have been forever adding hats to, chopping noses off, otherwise miss treating (improving?) public art...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gaint blue cock

        I think this was pubic art

      2. Fungus Bob

        Re: Gaint blue cock

        "People have been forever adding hats to, chopping noses off, otherwise miss treating (improving?) public art..."

        Exactly, look what's been done to Cadillac Ranch over the decades.

    2. P. Lee

      Re: Get rid of it altogether.

      Versailles is fine art.

      That large lump of whatever it is, is the vandalism. Yellow paint couldn't polish it.

      Even if you think the sculpture is art or satire, you don't scribble the words of Orwell's 1984 over a Constable.

      (But it still isn't art, its just rude pictures scribbled into a rather nice desk.)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Dirty Corner"

    Not fond of the name. I'd have gone for 'Wizard's sleeve". It's probably the first one I've seen that would produce more than a metaphorical echo.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Dirty Corner"

      Seen recently: Fuckingham palace

  3. iLurker

    Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

    It's high time the Yarty-Farties learned confrontational pieces making a political statement are not art.

    If you wouldn't live with it in your backyard it's not suitable in a public place, either.

    1. frank ly

      Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

      I wouldn't live with Nelson's column or the statue if Liberty in my backyard, nor would many people. Are they not suitable for display in a public place?

      Anyway, I thought it was a techno-cubist interpretation of a lily.

    2. NumptyScrub

      Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

      It's high time the Yarty-Farties learned confrontational pieces making a political statement are not art.

      If you wouldn't live with it in your backyard it's not suitable in a public place, either.

      I'd live with it in my back yard fine, so I guess that makes it suitable for a public place :)

      Unless you are suggesting that only your opinion of what is suitable should be considered?

    3. laird cummings

      Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

      "It's high time the Yarty-Farties learned confrontational pieces making a political statement are not art."

      I'd argue that they ARE art, but part of the art would be the responses - If you get confrontational, you had best expect reaction. Otherwise, you aren't, in fact, being confrontational - you're just being a wanker.

    4. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

      Simple rule of thumb I use. If you have to argue the case for something being "art", it almost certainly isn't.

      1. NumptyScrub

        Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.

        Simple rule of thumb I use. If you have to argue the case for something being "art", it almost certainly isn't.

        I know someone who sees literally no value in "art", and thus classes all non-engineering, primarily aesthetic works as "a waste of time". If you were talking to them, your rule of thumb would define nothing as art. Which is certainly true from their point of view, but not necessarily from others.

        Full disclosure: I think this particular piece is indeed a waste of time, but I'll defend the creator's right to call it art, and defend their right to claim any defacement is vandalism.

  4. Unep Eurobats
    Paris Hilton

    Portal

    I really like Kapoor's art (not sure about the Orbital, though).

    A vagina certainly isn't the first thing that springs to my mind when looking at Dirty Corner (Paris doesn't look too sure either): more like a portal to the underworld. I can imagine it could be very intriguing when viewed in situ.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If people hadn't mentioned it I'd of just thought it was part of the air con.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry, but . . .

      Downvote for use of the hideous "I'd of".

      1. AceRimmer

        Re: Sorry, but . . .

        Downvote for "sorry, but..."

        If you were truly sorry you wouldn't have it "submit"

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sorry, but . . .

          Use of that monstrosity physically hurts me. I know that's my problem (hence the apology) but I'm also entitled to express my angst.

          I would have accepted:

          I'd've

          I'd have

          I would have

          So many ways to be correct - why make the Baby Jesus cry?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: why make the Baby Jesus cry?

            Dawkins brownie points?

          2. Mark 85
            Devil

            Re: Sorry, but . . .

            why make the Baby Jesus cry?

            Because we can!!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re:

      There used to be a sculplture at Newport train station that looked like part of a venting system and until it was removed for maintenance work most people didn't know it was supposed to be an art piece. Maybe it's a trend I missed, stealth/ninja art, so artistic you don't even know it's art

  6. Paul Renault

    Finally!

    An all alliterated article's apex! Attago!

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: Finally!

      Froggy fools foul famous fake fanny

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Right, this needs to stop.....but....

        Gallic goons goad gaping great gash

        1. Mike Moyle

          Re: Right, this needs to stop.....but....

          Piqued Parisians paint preposterous pudenda.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Finally!

      Nothing could be finer

      than the Queen's metal Vagina.

      But I'm not feeling mellow,

      Now it's been painted yellow.

      We need a full inspection

      of the vandalised erection.

  7. Little Mouse
    Coat

    YELLOW paint?

    The vandals missed a trick there - mucky red would have been better.

    Or, if you believe the adverts on TV, blue.

    1. Stoneshop
      Paris Hilton

      Re: YELLOW paint?

      At least these are already pink: https://goo.gl/maps/wkarB

      (switch to Streetview from here, and look southeasterly)

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: YELLOW paint?

        Now that's an interesting place to put 3 large scale "orifices"....

        It one thing to turn your head when driving along a straight road, it's another to do it when you are on a roundabout....

      2. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip

        Re: YELLOW paint?

        Custard pie?

    2. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: YELLOW paint?

      "Or, if you believe the adverts on TV, blue"

      It's the Queen's Vagina, so of course, being royal, it should be blue. And what the hell is it doing in France? Has the Palace been informed? Are the pesky French, not satisified with cutting bits off their own royalty, now doing it to ours?

      Harumph! I demand an immediate cross-channel expedition to repatriate the Royal Pudenda!

    3. thomas k

      Re: YELLOW paint?

      If they'd used a greenish-yellow, we could say it had the clap.

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Alister
      Headmaster

      I'm sorry, I really tried, but I'm unable to stifle the inner pedant...

      talentless is a word, tallent-less isn't

      and controversial isn't spelled contraversial

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Khaptain Silver badge
          Headmaster

          "I'm trying to get a job as an El reg proofreader, OK?"

          I didn't think that El Reg used proofreaders.

          (P.S. Shouldn't that 'r' be in uppercase)

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. frank ly

      Even if the sculpture isn't. (I'm going by hazy memory here.)

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          "I mean, the exhibit could be called, "sore throat", and nobody would have been any the wiser."

          Yes, I agree with you, but nobody would have found any interest if it had been a "sore throat"..

          Large scale vaginas/vulvas appear to more readily attract the unwashed and the curious.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Mark 85
      Trollface

      And if it is supposed to be totally immersive... is it wet? What does it smell like?

  10. nematoad
    Stop

    Correction.

    Should of been ""What a tragedy. How sad. Never mind"

    Anyway if this is "art" then what has been done to it could be seen as "criticism"

    I wonder how much he was paid to produce this heap of tat.

    1. DanDanDan

      Re: Correction.

      Should HAVE!

      First clue that your post would be clueless.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I categorically reject any comparison with the work of American artist Paul McCarthy

    Obviously never heard wings or the frog chorus.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Basingstoke

    Should have been paired with: http://www.basingstoke.me.uk/lgwillie.html

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are we sure it isn't a yeast infection?

    Just asking

  14. Your alien overlord - fear me

    What, no mention of the vandal(s) as c*nts ?

  15. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

    Me...

    If I had found it offensive and wanted to address that I would have created a giant inflatable penis and stuffed it up there. Then told them *that* was art while starting a campaign to demand it was kept in place.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Jungleland

    Je Suis Charlie

    If it was a French person who did the vandalism, their love affair with freedom of expression lasted a long time, didn't it?

    Admittedly, we are talking several hundred millennia in that parallel universe known as social media but...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it national pedants day or something?

    1. Hollerith 1

      19 June! Celebrate!

      National Pendants Day comes round again. Huzza! I am celebrating with an Oxford comma-shaped cake.

      1. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip
        Headmaster

        Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

        Pedant's day... Apostrophe laddie... Apostrophe! (Hurls chalk)

        1. Fonant

          Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

          Assuming that there's more than one pedant in the nation, it should be "National Pedants' Day".

      2. Alister
        Headmaster

        Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

        National Pendants Day comes round again. Huzza! I am celebrating with an Oxford comma-shaped cake.

        And just to confirm, that should be Pedant's not Pendants

        :)

        1. Maty

          Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

          Not necessarily. Armistice Day is not Armistice's Day, and Christmas Day is not Christmas' Day. So if we have a day celebrating the nation's pedants National Pedants Day is perfectly grammatical.

          (Hurls chalk back.)

          1. Swarthy

            Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

            You are all incorrect.. a horrible travesty on this glorious day of pedantry: It's National Pedants' Day.

            National Pedant's Day would be a day in honour of the National Pedant.

            National Pedants Day would be a day concerning all of the pedants in the nation (possibly the one day they are in-season).

            National Pedants' Day is a day in honour of all of the pedants in the Nation.

          2. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip
            Headmaster

            Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

            Mr Maty, come and see me after class.. (rumages furtively in trouser pocket)

  18. Robin Bradshaw

    Public art

    Thats a bit high brow for my tastes.

    Colin Furze's 16ft high jet powered farting arse was much better :)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMzAS9SsMBw

  19. Kriilin

    Anyone else wondering what would happen if you shot a couple of Krupx MG7 proton torpedos down the hole?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The earth would move?

  20. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Looks OK to me.

    "Actually on the topic of the Queen's Vagina I confess the picture leaves me unconvinced,l but then it's only a picture - I suppose it could be better in person."

    Agreed.

    To be honest, to me this just looks like an art piece that makes some interesting use of light and shadow. (Other than the likely astronomical cost) I would have no problem putting this thing in my yard. If someone said "Hey, don't you think that looks like a vagina?" I guess I'd say "Well, I guess" but it's not the first thing that would have come to mind when I saw it.

  21. Allan George Dyer
    Paris Hilton

    I'm guessing the paint's from the performance-art "The Seduction". Don't worry if you missed it, I hear there will be new pieces in 9 months.

  22. armyknife

    What, a twat?

  23. Anon Adderlan
    Coat

    Maybe after a few beers, if I squint hard enough...

    So here's a link with images of exactly what the vandals did. Now I don't think this sculpture looks anything like a vagina, but if you do then this link isn't work safe either...

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33189194

    ...because it looks like, er, um, you know, that thing that happens when, uh...

    Regardless, it strikes me as less a case of raw vandalism and more a case of genuine (if vulgar) artistic expression.

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