Moscow, July 13
Vladimir Legoida
"I hope that future generations will be brought up in a different way, they will have such level of artistic taste and understanding of other person's inner world that such exhibitions will become impossible," head of the Information Synodal Department Vladimir Legoyda told an Interfax-Religion correspondent.
The Moscow Patriarchate representative is ready to back up a principle of artistic freedom, but "with a small exception - the Banned Art exhibition has nothing to do with art."
"Here we don't see an artist's creative search, but intended provocation and insult. I understand that modern art is pretty much an art of search and I also understand that a talented piece of art can provoke society. However, the works in question don't stand up to criticism even from an artistic point of view. I hope that future generations will just forget about them," Legoyda said.
The Tagansky Court in Moscow has ordered former Sakharov Center director Yury Samodurov to pay a 200,000 ruble fine this Monday.
The second defendant in the Banned Art case, former head of the Tretyakov Gallery's division of contemporary movements, Andrey Yerofeyev, has been ordered by the court to pay 150,000 rubles as a fine.
The indictment says that the exhibit displayed works "carrying humiliating and insulting images hostile to the Christian religion and believers." The criminal case against the organizers was initiated according to Article 282 (inciting hatred or enmity).
