By Gordon Kent

EDMONTON - Mayor Stephen Mandel wants four sculptures outside the Shaw Conference Centre taken away immediately after local Hindu leaders complained they're disrespectful of one of their faith's beloved gods.

The works by Edmonton artist Ryan McCourt use castoff industrial material to depict the elephant-headed Ganesha in various poses, including one piece in which he stands with his head lying on the ground beside a pillar that holds a breast and female genitals.

The temporary display has been outside the conference centre on Jasper Avenue since last November.

A letter sent Tuesday to Mandel, city councillors and the Edmonton Economic Development Corp. describes the sculptures as "debasing depictions of a God revered by all Hindus" and calls for them to be removed.

The letter, signed by 16 Hindu elders, priests and other officials, asks the city to ensure that in future no art using icons from any religion will be approved for this type of display unless it's approved by representatives from the religion involved.

"We're saying no religious community should see their icons treated in a way that they're not comfortable with when they had no input," said group spokesman Aran Veylan.

"The artist is absolutely free to create whatever art he wants and put it on display in private galleries. Our concern here is that this is a publicly funded, publicly endorsed presentation using tax dollars."

Edmonton Hindus are upset with the material and style of the pieces as well as the way Ganesha is linked to female genitals and a breast, Veylan said.

More than 700 people have signed a petition supporting the group's position.

Mandel said he wasn't aware of the controversy until he received the letter and asked EEDC to immediately remove the sculptures.

"We're quite disappointed that the event happened and it insulted the Hindu community. We had received, to my understanding, one (previous) letter of complaint. We forwarded it to EEDC," he said.

"They apparently dealt with it and didn't forward back to us any problem they were having."

Mandel said he was told McCourt consulted with Hindus about his project, which the mayor feels artists should do when they deal with religious icons.

However, he doesn't know whether this should be made a city policy, saying it could hurt creativity.

"If you are doing something that obviously has a religious flavour to it, it would be helpful if you talked to the group it's going to impact, but where do you draw the line?" he said.

"We have to respect people's religious beliefs and we have to respect the freedom of expression."

While the pieces were scheduled to be removed by early October to make room for the next show, the EEDC will look at whether they can be taken down earlier, spokesman Kenn Bur said.

The sculptures were chosen in a competition run by the Art and Design in Public Places program, a partnership that involves the city, businesses and the Works International Visual Arts Society, with the conference centre simply furnishing a location, he said.

"This artwork may, for some people, say different things. We want to be ... accommodating, but our role is to provide a public venue. Our role isn't to be a censor as to what is good art or what is not good art."

Linda Wedman, executive director of the Public Places program, said McCourt is deeply involved in studying Ganesha and didn't intend to offend anyone.

She has been trying for some time to arrange the equipment needed to move the heavy sculptures.

"It would not be a concern of mine ... to bring this sculpture down because we were going to do it anyway."

She said she has had dozens of positive and negative comments over the year about the images sculpted by McCourt, who received a $10,000 award when they were chosen for the exhibit and still owns them.

While Wedman is willing to consider having religious leaders approve art involving their icons, she said it might be difficult to do because a wide variety of symbols can be found in the same piece.

John Mahon, executive director of the Edmonton Arts Council, said opinions on this type of issue within a religious group can also vary widely.

"I would say you can't expect artists to get official sign-off from anyone of authority in any one religious tradition because there is no one authority that can responsibly speak for that religion."