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In recent months, artworks both historical and contemporary have suffered from hostility that even manifested itself in episodes of violence. Amid social unrest following the ousting of Maldives' president Mohamed Nasheed, early on the morning of February 7, a mob of suspected religious extremists broke into the National Museum in Male and destroyed beyond repair 30-odd Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, some dating as far back as the sixth century CE, from the country's pre-lslamic era.
This irreparable blow to the Maldives' cultural legacy was followed by incidents on the eastern side of the Indian Ocean, in Perth, where on four occasions vandals damaged Choi Jeong Hwa's outdoor prism-shaped sculpture, Air/Air (2012), made from stacked plastic objects in fluorescent colors and commissioned for the Perth International Arts Festival. The damage to Air/Air cost AUD thousands to repair and the inoffensive display necessitated after-hours security.
Public sculptures are far safer in North Korea, where along with a six-meter-tall bronze statue of Kim Jong-il, erected in the capital, Pyongyang, to celebrate the late leader's 70th birthday, the government has commissioned the Mansudae Art Studio to carve a 1 20-meter-long phrase reading "Unsurpassed Patriot General Kim Jong-il" into the rock of Mt. Seokda in South Pyongan Province. Close to 1 00 similar mountain carvings have been made since the 1970s, forever altering the country's scenic landscape - raising the question of whether these propagandists displays should be considered public art or just environmental vandalism.
It is hard for culture to flourish when it is abused by the public, misused by nationalists and impeded by conservative moral codes. In early April, the new Thai film Shakespeare Tong Tai ("Shakespeare Must Die"), directed by Ing ? and Manit Sriwanichpoom, was banned from local theaters because censors were concerned that the story of the Scottish general Macbeth's regicide and downfall might "cause disunity among the people." Thailand's punitive lese majesté laws are notoriously sensitive about depictions of its monarchy. Although the film received funding from the Ministry of Culture, according to Manit, censors could not specify problem areas, rather that the whole premise of Shakespeare's tragedy was at issue.
At Art Dubai (March 21-24), four artworks were removed by local censors so as, in the official line, not to...