Beautiful Bodies

The Sun Herald

ART SYDNEY issued a press release last week inviting media to snap “Gillie and Marc’s controversially censored 3m high Fetch Boy ‘pick up your dog poo’ Sculpture”, which is displayed outside the fair’s entrance.

Asked why and who was censoring, a spokeswoman said the artists, Gillie and Marc Schattner, had decided to clothe the statue after a sculpture of a half-man, half-dog bending over naked outside Richard Martin gallery in Woollahra last year attracted the odd complaint.

She was adamant Art Sydney hadn’t requested the beast’s genitals be covered and then said Fetch Boy was a tongue-in-cheek comment about cleaning up after one’s canine. But Gillie Schattner said they offered a large statue of two dogs “making love”, They weren’t in love but that didn’t really matter, which was turned down by Art Sydney.

“They didn’t want any of the nudes because families [would be] coming there,” she said. So the Schattners compromised with a clothed dog. “The naked body is beautiful as far as we are concerned,” she said. Pity the organisers don’t agree.> more