BALTIC CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART SUED; ELISABETH MURDOCH JOINS TATE’S BOARD

The Baltic Center for Contemporary Art is being taken to court for displaying a sculpture by artist Terence Koh depicting Jesus with an erection, writes Chris Irvine in The Telegraph. Koh’s other works in the exhibition included Mickey Mouse and E.T. with erections. A private prosecution has now been launched with legal documents claiming the gallery has both offended public decency and breached section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The maximum fine for outraging public decency is six months of prison and a ten-thousand-dollar fine. Legal experts say the hearing would be the first test of public-decency legislation since the government scrapped Britain’s ancient blasphemy laws in May. The prosecution has been launched by forty-year-old Emily Mapfuwa, an administrator from Brentwood, Essex. She argues that, had the statue been of Muhammad rather than Christ, there would have been a far greater outcry. “I don’t think this gallery would insult Muslims in this way, so why Christians?” she asked.

In other news, according to Bloomberg’s Farah Nayeri, Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, has joined the board of the Tate galleries, Tate announced yesterday. Elisabeth Murdoch, who runs the media company Shine Group, was named a trustee of Tate for four years by the British prime minister, Gordon Brown. She was a managing director at British Sky Broadcasting Group until 2000.