Cops order art nudes covered Mumbai: The city's moral brigade got a shot in the arm on Sunday when the Cola-ba police instructed artists at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda, to cover up sculp­tures and paintings showing nudes and body parts at the controversial exhibition 'Tits Clits n Elephant Dick'. A visitor to the gallery had filed a police complaint the pre­vious day However, not to be entirely defeated, sev­eral members of the city's art community- including painters and poets-joined artists Sanjeev Khandekar and Vaishali Narkar, who had put up the exhibition, in covering the ex­hibits with black cloth as a mark of protest. TOI had first reported about the exhi­bition on Wednesday "The police told us to remove some of the statues at 4 pm on Sat­urday When we refused, they came back a day later and asked us to cover the nudes," said Khandekar. The Colaba police had filed an FIR after psychologist and yoga instruc­tor Pushpa Vijule lodged a complaint against the exhibition with them. "I come from a convent school where we were rapped on the knuckles for using slang," said Vijule, who visited the gallery on Sunday, ironically in a low-neck blouse and visible bra strap. 'Vijule, who said she was too embarrassed to even utter the title of the exhibit, said she was not out to curtail freedom of expres­sion. "I agree that this is a piece of art," she said, "but art can come from heaven and art can come from hell. It depends on which sta­tion it comes from." The brochure for the exhibit also included the Marathi originals and English transla­tions of Khandekar's long poems 'In Search of The Best F-of His Life' and 'My First Piss in the Morning". 'Don't cops have crimes to solve?' P 7 UNDERCOVER ART? A visitor satisfies her curiosity at the Jehangir Art Gallery on Sunday ‘Don’t cops have crimes to solve? Mumbai: The exhibition by artists Sanjeev khandekar an and vaishali narkat at jehangir art gallery, which ran into controversy, has its de­fenders. Many at the gallery said they admired khandekar for his courage. Visual artist chintan upadhyay, who helped set up the exhibit, called the police complaint and response a shameful act. He added that the police had no right to enter the gallery. "sanjeev's exhibition was a matter of holding a mir­ror to society and giving space to the expression of one's unconscious. I think the exhibition has handled the issue very sensitively and in no way is it pornographic," he added. "i think it's preposterous that such police ac­tion can take place in our society," said art deal­er ashish nagpal. "don't the police know when to take a complaint seriously? There were eight policemen patrolling at the exhibition today. Don't they have any crimes to solve?" With sunday being the final day of the show, the colaba police uncovered the displays in the evening and filmed them as evidence. However, when asked if they were taking further action, an inspector merely said, "what can we do? The exhibition is over." TNN The Times Of India, August 7th 2006