NATION : Artist Decries City Hall Cover-Up

DALLAS — Three foot-tall sculptures of nude women on display at City Hall are being covered with fake fig leaves because a bureaucrat believed that they were too shocking.

Lubbock artist Future Akins says the city’s reaction to his work, titled “Getting Better Ain’t Always Easy,” was “silly and kind of sad.”

“I can’t see in my wildest imagination how these pieces would be offensive to anybody,” he said.

Yvonne Washington, assistant director of the city’s Park and Recreation Department, said that she had received no complaints about the art but that “there may be some questions raised” by residents about the figures.

“I think there was possibly too much shock value,” Washington said. “I’m trying to be sensitive to the whole community.”