The City Museum Kathmandu’s controversial art exhibition that denigrates the Living Goddess ‘Kumari’

The City Museum Kathmandu (CMK) held an Urban Myths 3 exhibition (April 6 – 21), which was an international group show of works of art by street artists. In one of the exhibits, artist Sudip Prasad Bella has displayed his art in which, the iconic red tika on the Kumari’s forehead has been made with a carefully selected part of a condom packet. That selected section roughly translates to “for use as male contraception and for family planning.’ In Nepal, the Kumari is worshipped as a living virgin Goddess, and is an important part of Kathmandu’s Newari community.

See Artist’s hypocrisy

 

On 23 April 2015, Naresh Tamrakar — chairman of a national coalition of Newars, Newa De Davu — called the City Museum Kathmandu’s director on his cellphone and issued direct physical threats against the museum about a Newari artist whose work the museum had recently exhibited.

The controversy, which started a day after the exhibition finished, was sparked after a headline “Condom Advertisement on The Living Goddess Kumari’s Forehead” was published by a local news site HamraKura.com.

Later in the evening, in a phone conversation with the museum director, Mr. Tamrakar demanded a formal apology from the artist for using the Kumari to advertise condoms, and from the Museum for showcasing this exhibit. “Should there be no formal apology, who knows what the members of this community, who are upset, may do in response,” Mr. Tamrakar warned.

After continuing to insist that there was no such advertisement, the museum director also tried explaining that the artist picked the Kumari’s image specifically because he recognizes the Goddesses’ stature, and he had wanted to pay homage to her by raising questions about the same society she serves, and the prevalent gender based discriminations in it through her image; and that how one interprets it is highly subjective.

On 24 April 2015, representatives of the Indra Jatra Committee too arrived at the City Museum Kathmandu looking to investigate the art, artist, and curator. The Museum’s director invited them to sit for a meeting, and the two sides expressed each other’s concerns. The Committee has requested the artist to publicly, in the presence of the Committee’s members, strip the condom element from the said art piece, and apologize. The representatives expressed urgent concern to “correct” these mistakes made by the artist and the Museum to avoid things getting out of hand.

The director explained to them that had HamraKura.com used an alternative headline, such as “Image of Kumari used to raise difficult questions about Nepali society,” which was the real intent of the artist, the response from the Newar community and the Committee probably would have been different. He also requested them to share this explanation with their respective community. The Museum’s director declined the request to share the artist’s contact details at the meeting.

The City Museum Kathmandu condemns threats of violence, as well as the headline used by HamraKura.com for the sake of sensationalism, fully aware of its inaccuracy. The City Museum condones the use of condoms for safe sex and to prevent pregnancy.

Reference : From Source