After receiving complaints from patrons who were offended by two photos which showed frontal nudity, Stewart Gerard has caused a stir in Winston-Salem. His exhibit of 24 photographs was showing at the Downtown Arts District Association’s Community Center. Recently, the two nudes have gone missing… repeatedly.

“He wonders if such attitudes belong in a district that professes to be devoted to the arts. He put his work back up after he found it in the closet, but he has come back to the center and found the photos in the closet six or seven times.”

Apparently the ruckus-raisers were parents who didn’t want their children to see such things (heaven forbid). Funny, we went to the NoDa Art Crawl last Friday (my birthday request) and I wouldn’t have objected to my kids seeing any of the art there. In fact, I hope they are exposed to nudity and sexuality in art. I want them to appreciate the difference between ‘art’ and ‘advertising’ and to appreciate the way artists communicate all that is meaningful about having our bodies.

Note: the image above is taken from an artist at etsy.com from her Muse series in which she painted life-sized backdrops of classic paintings, and photographed modern “rubinesque” beauties within them. What an inspired idea!

I searched for Gerard’s “racy” photos in question and could not find them online.