An Italian city is going ahead with plans to host an art exhibition by a Chinese dissident despite a request from China’s embassy to cancel it, the mayor said in comments published Friday.
The exhibition by Badiucao, a cartoonist also known as “The Chinese Banksy”, is expected to denounce Chinese political repression and censorship of information on the Covid pandemic.
The show, called “China is (not) near,” is due to run from November 13 to February 13 in the northern Italian city of Brescia, about 100 kilometres east of Milan.
Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told Il Foglio newspaper on Friday that his office would not comply with a request from the Chinese embassy in Italy to scrap it.
He said the friendship between the Italian and Chinese people “is not in question”, but “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticising some things.”
The deputy mayor, Laura Castelletti, earlier tweeted that “For us art and freedom of expression are an essential combination.”
Chinese dissident cartoonist Badiucao poses for a photographer prior a press conference on situation in Hong- Kong at the Paul-Loebe-Haus parliamentary annex in Berlin, on November 25, 2019. – Badiucao, a Chinese cartoonist whose anonymous political satire earned him comparisons with Banksy — and the wrath of Beijing — has outed himself as a former law school student who became politicised after watching a Tiananmen Square documentary in a dorm room.
Local paper Giornale di Brescia has quoted a letter from the cultural office to the council, in which it complained that **Badiucao’s works “are full of anti-Chinese lies”.**
It alleged that they “distort facts, spread false information,” mislead the Italian public and **“jeopardise friendly relations between China and Italy.”**
The cultural office closed the letter expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with the exhibition and asking the council “to act quickly to cancel the above mentioned activities”.
The press office of the Chinese embassy in Rome did not respond to phone calls from AFP seeking a comment.
Badiucao, who lives in Australia, calls himself on social media a “Chinese-Aussie Artist hunted by CCP [Chinese Communist Party]”.
He says the one in Brescia will be his first international solo exhibition.
Good… the ccp needs to go… it is a transnational criminal regime and our western leaders are too fond of money money money to stand up for human rights
not too long ago, ccp’s china accused italy of spreading the wuhan virus.
ccp claimed the virus originated from italy before going full overdrive saying its from some lab in some fort in US.
i supposed this is Italy’s way of saying: “we remember what you said about us sometime back, here’s the long overdue fuck you and take it dry!”
If ccp cannot handle truth or criticism then it doesn’t deserve to be in power
1. The right to hold or not an exhibition is strictly Italy’s domestic affair with which China has NO right to interfere
2. The relationship between Italy and China must be based on equality and mutual respect, since friendship will never grow out of a relationship between master and slave
3. This is NOT about relationship between China and Italy, this is about the one between Chinese government and Chinese people
4. The forced and unauthorized alteration and representation of Chinese people in whatever form by its ruling government is fascism for which we Italians paid a great price and learned a painful lesson, and we’ll take whatever chance, including but not limited to holding this exhibition, to educate ourselves to prevent the idea from rising again on our soil
5. Vaffanculo, cazzo
Fuck Xi and all his paper skinned cronies. Such fragile egos they can’t even tolerate another nation hosting critical material. Come over and try to fucking stop them then! Just whining in their censured press like baby back bitches. Fuck the ccp.
It’s so funny, they never get it’s not like in China, people are free to do whatever they want without having the government interfere.
I can hear the millions of feelings getting hurt.
However they could have written the name in the title, it’s Brescia (200k inhabitants, the province has 1.2 million), one of the 10/11 most important cities in Italy and not a small village…
I wonder how much money and resources China spends in policing the world’s culture
What her dissident ?
Good on Italy for standing up.
As a French I’m still sad that my country would not say no to China, when it was about an exposition about Genghis Khan.
14 comments
Fuck Winnie and all of the Hundred Acre Wood People’s Republic.
Let them cty
LAMXI morph meme Event poster
https://archive.md/znu2y/f1d40b87ba788592aef9ec2894834eb35df18601.jpg
by AFP15:36, 22 October 2021
An Italian city is going ahead with plans to host an art exhibition by a Chinese dissident despite a request from China’s embassy to cancel it, the mayor said in comments published Friday.
The exhibition by Badiucao, a cartoonist also known as “The Chinese Banksy”, is expected to denounce Chinese political repression and censorship of information on the Covid pandemic.
The show, called “China is (not) near,” is due to run from November 13 to February 13 in the northern Italian city of Brescia, about 100 kilometres east of Milan.
Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told Il Foglio newspaper on Friday that his office would not comply with a request from the Chinese embassy in Italy to scrap it.
He said the friendship between the Italian and Chinese people “is not in question”, but “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticising some things.”
The deputy mayor, Laura Castelletti, earlier tweeted that “For us art and freedom of expression are an essential combination.”
Chinese dissident cartoonist Badiucao poses for a photographer prior a press conference on situation in Hong- Kong at the Paul-Loebe-Haus parliamentary annex in Berlin, on November 25, 2019. – Badiucao, a Chinese cartoonist whose anonymous political satire earned him comparisons with Banksy — and the wrath of Beijing — has outed himself as a former law school student who became politicised after watching a Tiananmen Square documentary in a dorm room.
Local paper Giornale di Brescia has quoted a letter from the cultural office to the council, in which it complained that **Badiucao’s works “are full of anti-Chinese lies”.**
It alleged that they “distort facts, spread false information,” mislead the Italian public and **“jeopardise friendly relations between China and Italy.”**
The cultural office closed the letter expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with the exhibition and asking the council “to act quickly to cancel the above mentioned activities”.
The press office of the Chinese embassy in Rome did not respond to phone calls from AFP seeking a comment.
Badiucao, who lives in Australia, calls himself on social media a “Chinese-Aussie Artist hunted by CCP [Chinese Communist Party]”.
He says the one in Brescia will be his first international solo exhibition.
Good… the ccp needs to go… it is a transnational criminal regime and our western leaders are too fond of money money money to stand up for human rights
not too long ago, ccp’s china accused italy of spreading the wuhan virus.
ccp claimed the virus originated from italy before going full overdrive saying its from some lab in some fort in US.
i supposed this is Italy’s way of saying: “we remember what you said about us sometime back, here’s the long overdue fuck you and take it dry!”
If ccp cannot handle truth or criticism then it doesn’t deserve to be in power
1. The right to hold or not an exhibition is strictly Italy’s domestic affair with which China has NO right to interfere
2. The relationship between Italy and China must be based on equality and mutual respect, since friendship will never grow out of a relationship between master and slave
3. This is NOT about relationship between China and Italy, this is about the one between Chinese government and Chinese people
4. The forced and unauthorized alteration and representation of Chinese people in whatever form by its ruling government is fascism for which we Italians paid a great price and learned a painful lesson, and we’ll take whatever chance, including but not limited to holding this exhibition, to educate ourselves to prevent the idea from rising again on our soil
5. Vaffanculo, cazzo
Fuck Xi and all his paper skinned cronies. Such fragile egos they can’t even tolerate another nation hosting critical material. Come over and try to fucking stop them then! Just whining in their censured press like baby back bitches. Fuck the ccp.
It’s so funny, they never get it’s not like in China, people are free to do whatever they want without having the government interfere.
I can hear the millions of feelings getting hurt.
However they could have written the name in the title, it’s Brescia (200k inhabitants, the province has 1.2 million), one of the 10/11 most important cities in Italy and not a small village…
I wonder how much money and resources China spends in policing the world’s culture
What her dissident ?
Good on Italy for standing up.
As a French I’m still sad that my country would not say no to China, when it was about an exposition about Genghis Khan.
(They wanted to drop the Khan)