Das Liebeskonzil (The Council of Love)

Medium: Theatre [[:Category:|]] [[:Category:|]]

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Artist: Oscar Panizza

Confronting Bodies: The Liebeskonzil was banned by a Munich court in 1895, and Panizza was sentenced to a year in prison for blasphemy.

In 1993, the European Court of Human Rights upheld a decision made seven years earlier (1986) by an Austrian court to stop a film based on the play.

Dates of Action: 1895 and 1986

Location: Munich in 1895 Innsbruck in 1986

Description of Artwork: Oscar Panizza, a turn-of-the-century modernist, made religious and political hypocrisy his main target. In Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany, he found no lack of inspiration. Das Liebeskonzil is a satire on the hypocrisy of religion. In the Austrian film version, the director Werner Schroeter used a performance of the play by Teatro Belli in Rome as a basis and set it in the context of a reconstruction of Panizza's blasphemy trial.

The Incident: In support of its ruling, the European Court applied the principle of giving national definitions of human rights a certain latitude, regardless of the symbolic implications of upholding outright censorship at a European level.

The Innsbruck court of appeals confirmed a decision of a lower court, based on the assumption that "artistic freedom is necessarily limited by the rights of others to religious freedom and the obligation of the state to guarantee a society founded on order and tolerance." Results of Incident: In both cases the work of art is condemned for blasphemy.

Source: NCAC, Arne Ruth [[Category:]] [[Category:]] [[Category:]] [[Category:]] [[Category:]] [[Category:]] [[Category:]]