‘Indecent exposure’ covered up

A collection of life-size sculptures depicting nude couples in suggestive positions remained covered by cloth on the rooftop garden of a five-star hotel in the city for a second day Tuesday, weeks after complaints first surfaced about the "offense against decency."

Sitting at Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel Shanghai, the five copper pieces that belong to the 48-year-old owner of the five-star establishment, which opened last year, feature an image of a man intimately caressing a woman's private parts.

It is an image that has been shamed as "vulgar" by dozens of people online since a photograph of the artwork was posted to a photo-sharing platform on Yahoo China last month - a reaction that has caught the hotel by surprise.

"The sculptures were never even put out for display," a public relations officer, who asked only to be identified by her surname, Zhong, from the hotel, told the Global Times Tuesday. "They were only moved to the hotel's private rooftop garden for temporary storage at the end of last year."

Dai Zhikang, chief executive officer of ZenDai Group, which owns the hotel and Himalayas Art Gallery, had them moved there last year after purchasing the collection from the artist, Geng Bo, 43, with the purpose of finding room for them elsewhere - likely at the gallery later this year, she said.

Zhong added that Dai will decide what to do with the pieces when he returns to the city from his business trip overseas. Until then, the rooftop garden is closed to visitors, she said.

Annie Summer, curator of Cross Gallery, where the sculptures were first exhibited in the city in 2007 - after the collection received similar criticisms at Beijing art galleries the previous year - said that the latest controversy is "such a pity."

"Art is like a ruler that measures the tolerance and perspective of beauty of a city and its peoples," she told the Global Times Tuesday.

"Throughout history, notable artworks have always been controversial during its time, being loved by some, while hated by others," she added.

Sculptor Geng, who is associated with a more daring and provocative approach to art, meanwhile, said Tuesday that people are entitled to their own opinions of his artwork, which was only created with the intent of showing women as "being very desirable from the perspective of men."

"It's hardly secret that men have longed for women since perhaps the beginning of time," the Beijing-based artist told the Global Times in a telephone interview Tuesday. "The sculptures are meant to embrace the beauty of men's innermost desires."