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A university in Berlin will paint over a poem that is inscribed on its facade after students complained it was sexist, The Local, an English-language news outlet in Germany, reported. Alice Salomon University has announced it will paint over the poem with selections from a new poetry prize winner every five years rather than keep the current poem by Eugen Gomringer. Students complained that Gomringer’s Spanish-language poem, titled “avenidas,” was sexist because a line that translates as “avenues and flowers and women and an admirer” portrays women as objects of male desire.
Gomringer criticized the university’s decision to paint over his poem as “an encroachment on the freedom of art and poetry.”
The managing director of the German Cultural Council, Olaf Zimmermann, also criticized the decision: “I would never have thought it possible for a university that is itself a beneficiary of freedom of art and science to trample on this right in such a way,” he said.
The university rector, Uwe Bettig, said the university is demonstrating "a clear commitment to art." The poem will be painted over with writing by last year's winner of the university's poetry prize, Barbara Köhler, in the fall.
