Swiss artist Christoph Büchel is getting Viennese conservatives hot under the collar with his most recent art intervention, in which he’s turned the Secession art gallery into an after hours sex club. By inviting an underground swingers’ group to hold their nightly dalliances in the gallery, Büchel hopes to recall the same controversy that erupted over Gustav Klimt’s now famous Beethoven Frieze, which was considered obscene and pornographic when it was first exhibited in 1903 because of its symbolic depictions of nude women. But (art) lovers shouldn’t go rushing to the gallery with handcuffs expecting to copulate under a Klimt; while gallery visitors can walk around the club’s plush sofas and beds, no sex acts are allowed during normal gallery hours, and the mural is off limits at night.
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