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Art to 'Provoke?': Belgian Model Poses Naked Near Jerusalem's Western Wall

The woman’s latest revealing snapshot seems to be raising questions not merely of religious ethics, but is also functioning as a new twist in Oscar Wilde’s debate over the essence of art.
Sputnik

Model Marisa Papen, previously detained in Egypt for posing in the buff in front of ancient holy places, has repeated her fad, but this time near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, to provide a picture for a Belgian art exhibition, according to The Times of Israel.

A photo of the 26-year-old lying on a sunlit terrace of a privately owned house just a stone’s throw from the Western Wall plaza is listed in a gallery in Knokke, a Belgian coastal town, as part of an ongoing exhibition,  according to the HLN news site. The photo is titled “Road to Liberation” and it features Papen on a chaise longue, with her naked body serving as the foreground for the women’s part of the Western Wall, venerated by Jews.

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The picture does not include any part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, which fueled talks over whether the snap had been edited in order not to raise excessive controversy; however, Mathias Lambrecht, who lensed the picture, flatly denied the assumption. "The picture is uncropped. The mosque was not in the frame. Nothing to edit out," he told Michael Freilich, editor-in-chief of the Jewish newspaper Joods Actueel.

The latter assumed that although art and nudity have been "interwined for centuries," it is still to be resolved if art "remains art when it involves cash and a conscious attempt to provoke and shock."

Twitter was also quick to weigh in on the debate, some users politicizing the matter:

Unlike in Belgium, the picture hit a raw nerve in Israel, where the Foundation for the Heritage of the Western Wall and more particularly, the Western Wall’s rabbi billed the incident “awkward and serious,” as it offends the worshippers.

The model, whose Instagram page abounds in revealing images made in different parts of the world, made headlines last year as she posed naked at the Karnak Temple Complex in Egypt, subsequently spending 24 hours in custody.

 

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