Touchy Art
May 27, 2008
The work by Martin Kippenberger shows a green frog on a cross, with a mug of beer on one side and an egg on the other. It stands about one meter (3 feet) high.
"We've decided that a leaflet about this work will be distributed to all visitors to explain its artistic value," a spokesman at the museum in north-eastern Balzano, where the statue is on display, told AFP news agency.
The regional governor in the South Tyrolean area, Luis Durnwalder, told "Suedtirol Online" that the exhibit was "lacking respect and taste."
"Someone has to be touched in the head to make something like that," added Durnwalder.
According to Italian press, curators have said the work is a self-portrait of the artist "in a profound state of crisis." It was created in 1990 under the original title "Feet First."
Kippenberger had recently undergone treatment for a drug and alcohol addition. The artist died in 1997 at the age of 44.