Vandals test Russia's stance on religious vs. artistic freedom

BLOOMBERG VIEW
By Leonid Bershidsky

"Descent From the Cross" by Vadim Sidur

RUSSIA---When a group of Orthodox Christian fundamentalists attacked an art exhibition in Moscow on Friday, they exposed some of the contradictions of the ideology underlying President Vladimir Putin's regime. The exhibition, "Sculptures We Do Not See," features works by Vadim Sidur, Nikolai Silis and Vladimir Lemport, Soviet nonconformists who did their best work in the 1950s and 1960s. Sidur, who liked using scrap -- drainpipes, rusty shovels, rib-cage-like radiators -- in irreverent sculptures, was also fond of Christian imagery, but not in its traditional form. [link]