World

Huge banana protest after woman eating one was censored in Poland

By Deputy Chief EditorApril 30, 2019

207 1 minute read

People with bananas demonstrate with others outside Warsaw's National Museum, Poland — People with bananas demonstrate with others outside Warsaws National Museum, Poland (Picture: AP)

As protests go, this one is completely bananas.

Hundreds of people gathered outside an art gallery in Poland after it banned work that featured the fruit.

The protesters jointly ate hundreds of bananas during an event to highlight growing censorship in the country.

The row was sparked after Warsaws top national gallery removed a 1973 video entitled Consumer Art.

It was by artist Natalia LL and featured a young woman eating a banana with great pleasure.

The new museum head, Jerzy Miziolek, was recently summoned to the Ministry of Culture and the art banned for being improper.

A separate 2005 video by another controversial female artist, Katarzyna Kozyra, showing a woman walking two men on all fours, dressed as dogs on a lead, was also removed.

People with bananas demonstrate outside Warsaw's National Museum on April 29, 2019, to protest against censorship, after authorities removed an artwork at the museum presenting a woman eating a banana, saying it was improper. (Photo by Janek SKARZYNSKI / AFP)JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images — The art work has been removed for being improper (Picture: AFP)

A man eats a banana during a protest against perceived censorship by Poland's National Museum in front of the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland April 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel — Protesters have been eating bananas to complain about government censorship (Picture: Reuters)

Miziolek said he was opposed to showing works that could irritate sensitive young people and suggested some visitors had complained.

Both he and the Ministry of Culture denied there was pressure on the museum, despite both works being on show for many years.

Protesters have reacted by posting photos of them eating bananas on Facebook and Twitter to ridicule the ban.

And on Monday, many headed down to the state-run museum saying artists must be free to create.

The dispute is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding art and culture under the conservative and nationalist government that won power in 2015.