Art must be free, and art must be allowed to provoke and criticize, that's what the Basic Law stipulates for good reasons.

This also applies to artistic criticism of scandalous processes in church institutions, in which perpetrators make terrible use of people's need for religious security.

When artists criticize, however, they must be aware that their works can be an imposition for believers.

Christine Metzner was aware of this by her own admission when she presented her “pornographic series” in the Offenbach pop-up gallery “Superladen”, in which she covered icons with depictions of genitals, sexual practices and the like.

Metzner knows that icons have a special meaning for people of Christian Orthodox faith, but, as she says, wants the representations to be understood as symbols for the self-legitimation of church institutions, derived from the religious needs of people.

Metzner wants to denounce the delicate relationship of church institutions to women, to sexuality, the cases of sexualised violence, the acts of abuse, committed by representatives of church institutions and concealed from others.

City of the creative

There is reason to do so, and as an artist she has the right to do so. Everyone has to decide for themselves whether they have found an appropriate form for such criticism by alienating the icons. It is in the nature of things that modern art quickly collides with a petty bourgeois understanding of art. A certain outrage is programmed, possibly also intentional. One can and should discuss it in a free society - indeed argue whether works of art do what the artists postulate or not.

However, the discursive dispute should never go so far that the artist feels threatened in the end, as is now the case.

The Mayor of Offenbach, Felix Schwenke, rightly pointed out that it must arouse concern if emotionalization prevents a dialogue.

And it is also right and important when Schwenke makes it clear in this context that the city of Offenbach is not putting the “Superladen” project or the presentation of the “pornographic series” up for discussion.

Anything else would thwart Offenbach's reputation as a city of creative people.