PCs angry explicit sex art allowed inside Ontario office building

TORONTO – Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives say a government office building is no place for artwork that includes graphic photographs of women having sex.

PC women’s critic Laurie Scott was “disappointed” to see a small art gallery in a provincial government office block in Toronto display a work with explicit images of women engaged in various sex acts.

Sacred Circle VI by French-Canadian artist Rosalie Maheux looks like an interesting mosaic from a short distance away, but a closer view shows it’s composed of what many would consider pornographic pictures of women.

Scott says she doesn’t care what the intention or aims of the artist were, the government should be leading by example in combating the sexual objectification of women.

The Liberal government says the gallery is a public space operated by an independent board of directors made up of volunteers from the community and representatives from four art societies.

But the Conservatives insist government offices are no place for sexually graphic art works.

“The fact that a publicly housed gallery has been allowed to not only display but to sell images of this nature is very worrisome,” Scott said in a statement.