His spider sense isn’t the only thing tingling! A Spider-Man statue that was on the side of a shopping center in Busan, South Korea, has been removed due to complaints that the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was being overly friendly, showing off an unquestionable erection.
The sculpture by artist Eunsuk Yoo had been displayed at the Lotte Shopping Center since last year, overlooking the mall’s playground and rest area. The artist was told to take his statue down or to modify it, and he chose to have it taken down. He provided explination via his Facebook page:
I am the artist who made this piece. My reason for it was that I wanted apply the natural physical phenomenon to a superhero depict whats’s natural in the morning without lies and superficial-ness in a comical way.
There have been some comments on various community sites and Facebook pages that this is lewd and a disgrace to the source material. Lotte Shopping Center has received many complaint calls this morning from a certain organization, and after their meeting, it was decided that I have to either modify or take the statue down. Instead of modifying my work, I’ve decided to take it down.
It was ok for about a year and now it has to be taken down due a sudden interest in the piece, which is sad. But I understand that a piece that could be potentially interpreted as lewd can be offensive at a place like shopping mall. It’s disappointing, but I’ll reach out to the public with a better work next time.