By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A male artist from Mumbai who supposedly wears skirts out of his solidarity for women’s causes was stopped at the doors of the Vatican by an official who would not let him enter because of his inappropriate dress.
DNAIndia.com is reporting that an artist named Julius Macwan had come to Rome to see the art that inspired his own creativity, especially the Pieta, Michelangelo’s famous sculpture which is housed in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“I wanted to see the Pieta in the Vatican, had dressed formally for the occasion — skirt covering the knees, leg warmers, boots, a half- sleeved shirt,” Macwan said after his return to India. “You can say my outfit was inspired by Roman warriors of the past.”
Vatican officials didn’t see it that way. After clarifying that Macwan was not Scottish and wearing a kilt of some kind, the official pointed at the skirt and said, “You cannot go in. If you argue, I’ll call the police.”
“I was in a state of shock, my mind was numb,” Macwan said when he realized that he would not be allowed in the Vatican.
Macwan claims he came to Rome especially to see the art of Michelangelo and Bernini, particularly the Pieta, which inspired what he calls his “most famous work”, what he calls “Pieta/The Death of Magic.” The work is a self-portrait of Macwan, in a skirt, holding the body of a woman in a bikini, which he says is representative of the magic of womanhood dying in a male-controlled world.
“I was thrilled to be at the Vatican, I’m Roman Catholic, named after the Roman Caesar, I was in his city, my work deals with the Pieta, I was wearing Roman-inspired clothing, thinking in this visit, destiny completes itself,” Macwan claimed.
But it was not to be.
Macwan never went inside the Vatican and said he believes the episode was not as racist as it was chauvinistic .
“I was stopped because I wore a skirt, not because I was showing my knees. There was another guy going in later, in what appeared to be swimming trunks, his knees were showing. But he was let in.”
Macwan has decided that although the incident was humiliating, he’s not filing any complaints against the “fundamentalism” of religion. Instead, he is feeling “strangely empowered” by the incident and plans to make it the subject of his next artistic work.
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Photo from DNAIndia.com is of Julius Macwan
