French Kiss Kulik Goodbye!

The CBC reported today that last Friday French plain-clothes officers removed artist Oleg Kulik’s photo works from display at Paris’s Grand Palais exhibition hall after a customs official expressed concern that they may run afoul of French obscenity laws. In the photos, Kulik is depicted nude in suggestive poses with a variety of animals.

Officers photographed the artworks as part of a preliminary investigation into whether they constitute illicit pornography and then returned the pieces to the fair. Two Moscow gallery owners, Yelena Selina and Sergei Khripun, were also brought in for questioning and released.

French law bans the publication or exhibition of violent or pornographic images where minors could see them. The Paris prosecutor’s office must now decide whether to pursue the investigation.