Art or Pornography?
From December of 1996 to August of 1998 the exhibit “The Hands of Rodin: A Tribute to B. Gerald Cantor” took a six-stop tour around the United States. The 56-piece exhibit included pieces from French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s oeuvre that celebrated his fascination with human hands.
Rodin’s appreciation for the expressive nature of human hands is apparent in the variety of sculptures fe
However, it was not the expressive nature of Rodin’s hands that influenced Brigham Young University to cut four statues while hosting the exhibit.
“We feel that both because of the audience here and the symbols of this university and the community, and the museum therefore, that these particular works just have the kind of content that most people would rather not think about the hands and not the relationship to the foundation, ” said Campbell Gray, the director of BYU’s Museum of Art in 1997.
