Notice on a wall at a Rene´Magritte exhibition

This is not an image of a church window

On the wall by the smallest space in the exhibition is the following notice:

Not suitable for young visitors under 16.

There are works in this room that might

hurt your religious or aesthetic feelings.

I am over 16. I have no official religion. My aesthetic feelings are already all atingle.

After van Gogh, Magritte is my favourite artist. I'm on safe ground here. I enter the cupboard sized room.

The first thing I see is Rene Magritte's painting of a giraffe standing in a tall crystal glass. It's long neck is protruding. There are also pencil sketches or maybe they were pen and ink drawings, I can't remember now.

In one particular picture the organ that the priest or the bishop is playing is clearly not the church organ. You may now imagine what kind of organ it is.

The picture of the priest or bishop at the organ is obviously one of the works referred to on the notice outside the black curtain that I have just passed through.

Judging by the plethora of recent news reports and the amount of compensation paid to victims by the Holy See, it would appear that many thousands of boys, mostly under 16, have already seen the church organ in the flesh.

Many of the boys, now men, are currently receiving psychological counseling. Hard information regarding the fates of the various organ playing priests or bishops is sparse.

I presume they are keeping their heads down; keeping a low profile.

In the first room of the exhibition I was told to put my camera away. In the absence of a giraffe in a glass I give you an illuminated waterfall. I took the photo in Italy from a low angle.

____

at Albertina, Vienna

until February 2012