Two nude statues of girls in a public park in western Japan are the latest casualties in what critics call an overly cautious purge of post-war art once hailed as symbols of peace and cultural sophistication.
Advertisement
The statues in question – designed by sculptor Seiichi Abe to mark the 1988 opening of the Seto Ohashi Bridge connecting Kagawa and Okayama prefectures – are to be removed from a park in the city of Takamatsu at the end of August when redevelopment work is carried out.
City officials said the decision followed complaints from parents who questioned why the statues were on public display, and described the works as “outdated”. Authorities have yet to decide if they will be relocated elsewhere.
But Abe defended his work as a celebration of the human form that was not intended to be sexual in nature.
“A woman’s body is not something shameful,” he told Kansai Television News (KTV News). “I wanted to show the natural beauty of human growth, the vitality of life and the strength of women who give birth. That is the most beautiful thing.”
Advertisement
The removals are part of a broader trend across Japan, as local governments quietly take down nude public artworks in the face of modern discomfort over nudity – a subject that rarely provoked such controversy in the immediate post-war decades when the statues were erected.