the art collectors

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Jenny Saville Album Art Censored

While Journal For Plague Lovers, the newest release by Welsh band, Manic Street Preachers, may still be hitting the shelves of British supermarkets, the album’s artwork won’t. Large chains including Sainsburys and Tesco will sell the CD in a plain white slipcase, due to “inappropriate” cover art painted by notable British painter, Jenny Saville (who also contributed art to the band’s 1994 album,The Holy Bible, and has exhibited with Gagosian and Saatchi). Apparently Stare, which was painted by Saville in 2005, and depicts a bruised boy, has been deemed too offensive and violent to be placed alongside tabloids and candybars. It’s Just another tale of the power large corporate retailers have over the recording industry, as it was ultimately the decision of Columbia Records to placate them and deliver the album with a Smell the Glove treatment.

Easily the most humorous anecdote to surface from this already absurd situation comes to us from Peter Black, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesman in Wales, who said “I would be disturbed if supermarkets were deliberately acting in that way with regard to pictures of children with disfigurement. The one thing we need to do is allow people who are disfigured to live as normal a life as possible.” (via Telegraph) Bold words indeed…File this one under ridiculous.