The organizers of the controversial Forbidden Art-2006 exhibition in Moscow have appealed the court verdict which found them guilty of inciting national and religious hatred, a defense lawyer said.
The Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, held at Moscow's Andrei Sakharov Community Center, displayed artwork that had been barred from Moscow's mainstream museums and galleries. Many of the exhibits featured blasphemous images of Jesus Christ. In one, he had a Mickey Mouse head and in another his head had been replaced by an Order of Lenin medal.
An enquiry was launched into the controversial exhibition in 2007 after a Christian organization accused the show's curators of defacing religious symbols and fueling national hatred.
Sakharov Center Director Yury Samodurov was fined 200,000 rubles (about $6,000) and the ex-head of the Tretyakov Gallery's New Trends Department, Andrei Yerofeyev, was fined 150,000 rubles ($5,000).
"We have already filed a brief appeal against the verdict made at the Moscow Tagansky court," lawyer Kseniya Kostromina said, adding that the complete appeal containing all the arguments of the accused and their defenders would be filed after the court has handed over copies of the court hearings.
"We have to receive and examine the proceedings so that we can set out our position in detail in the full appeal," Kostromina said.
"This is a big loss for all healthy European powers in Russia," Yerofeyev told Noviye Izvestiya newspaper after the hearing. "The authorities weren't brave enough to use sober arguments and oppose barbarism, obscurantism and vulgarism."
The Russian arts community was outraged by the court's decision and Russian curator Marat Gelman pledged to organize a similar exhibition.
MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti)
