Two multinational companies have chosen to censor an artist they themselves had invited, because a group of employees found the images offensive.

“Normally we do not censor our art society, but we have a diversity policy that says there must be room for everyone and all opinions. So when we had some employee groups who felt offended by the pictures, we had to remove them,” says Henrik Kirkeskov, communications manager at Hewlett-Packard in Denmark.

He does not wish to comment on which employees were involved.

The computer giant had entered into an agreement with the painter Steffen Kindt that he could exhibit his pictures in the computer company’s office landscape in July and August.

“After my pictures had been hanging there for exactly one week, they were taken down, and then I was told that they were left in their reception area where I could pick them up,” says Steffen Kindt.

Several of his pictures have pornographic undertones, where a woman, for example, is eating a banana. However, scantily clad women did not apparently repel the art associations at the two multinational companies, who approved that the pictures could be displayed for the enjoyment of the employees.

The other company that had invited Steffen Kindt was the oil company Dansk Shell. Here, the pictures were also allowed to hang for more than a week without the employees feeling offended by them, but when the company received international visitors, the most challenging paintings were filtered out.

“Suddenly my pictures were taken down early, and I was told it was because they were hosting an international delegation from Shell all over the world, some of whose representatives found the pictures offensive. So now I could come and pick up my art,” says Steffen Kindt.

In the spring, the pictures were exhibited at the headquarters of Post Danmark in Copenhagen, and there were no problems there. At Dansk Shell, the response is: “We are a large international company where many people with different cultural backgrounds come, and when some found it over the limit to have such art during lunch breaks, one must respect that, therefore we took the pictures down,” explains Susanne Tolstrup, Issue Manager at Dansk Shell.