A video art of a male artist, who filmed women without permission in China and ranked them according to their looks, appeared in an exhibition at an art museum in Shanghai, but was severely criticized and suspended.



The contemporary art museum 'OCAT Shanghai', run by the Xiangnin Heo Museum of Art, announced through Weibo, a Chinese social media site, that it will stop exhibiting the 2013 video art 'Ugly and Ugly' by artist Song Ta (宋拓, 33).



Songta's 'Works' is a video in which he and his assistant secretly filmed a woman passing by on the college campus, ranked them in order of appearance.



In a later interview, Songta said that the ranking of appearances was carefully ranked, and that 'ugly women' were classified into 'unforgivable ugly' and 'unforgivable ugly'.



In addition, the photo of the woman who gave him the first place in appearance rankings was not included in the work, but was released separately and said, "I will have it for me."



The video is 7 hours long, and about 5,000 women appear.



The title of the work in English is 'Ugly and Ugly' and the name of the work in Chinese is 'Kyohwa (校花),' which means 'flower of the campus', which clearly shows that the artist objectifies women.



This work in question also sparked controversy when it was exhibited at the Ullens Contemporary Art Center in Beijing in 2013.



At that time, the Chinese version of the New York Times (NYT) called it "ugly" and "a work with serious problems"was strongly criticized.



In an interview with 'Vice' magazine in 2019, Songta insisted, "I have the right to tell the truth," and that "objectifying in a truthful way is also one of respect."



He also said, "I was afraid that an ordinary person without arms, eyes or ears would just be ugly and make people uncomfortable."



According to the Chinese state-run Global Times and the British BBC, which announced the suspension of the Shanghai exhibition, the museum explained, "After reviewing the artwork and the artist's description, it was confirmed that the intent and title of the artwork were offensive to women."



On Weibo, voices criticizing Song Ta's misogyny poured in.



One netizen said, "It's 2021, can you shamelessly objectify women in this way without shame?" said, "Song Ta's work not only insulted women, but also infringed on their portrait rights in that they didn't even know they were being filmed." pointed out.



A legal expert told the Global Times that Songta's actions felt like a civil lawsuit, and he could demand the removal of the video and compensation and apology.



(Picture = Weibo clip, Yonhap News)