Italy's first major show of artworks dealing with gay issues and subjects is an "epic event", according to Milan Culture Councillor Vittorio Sgarbi.
"This exhibition represents gay pride," said Sgarbi at the presentation of the show, which runs at the city's Palazzo della Ragione until November 11.
"It gives space to artists who show homosexual aesthetics in a flashy, proud way with a few irrepressible provocations".
The art critic has nipped in the bud a row about a controversial Pope-look-alike sculpture made by local artist Paolo Schmidlin.
Sgarbi bought the work, entitled Miss Kitty, and pulled it from the show.
It depicts a half-naked elderly man, whose face looks like Benedict XVI's, wearing a white wig and stockings.
"I'll keep it with me so that I can give the pope back the decorum he deserves," explained Sgarbi.
"I'll probably put it in my office or in another private place".
The removal of the sculpture led Sgarbi to scrap the ban he had imposed on under-18s attending the show.
Organizers had previously pulled a work based on a photograph of a Premier Romano Prodi's spokesperson, Silvio Sircana, talking to a transgender prostitute - a shot that caused scandal earlier this year when published in newspapers.
They opted, however, to leave in another controversial work representing a naked hermaphrodite.
"I don't think a child needs to worry about seeing a female organ in the place of a male one," Sgarbi said.
The exhibition, entitled 'Arte e Omosessualita' (Art and Homosexuality), starts with late 19th-century pieces and works its way up to the present day.
Curator Eugenio Viola explained that special attention was devoted to art created in the last 35 years when preparing the show.
"These artists use homoerotic love as a expedient to knock down conventional distinctions between art, eroticism and pornography," Viola said.
The exhibition features works by 150 different artists in all.
These include Andy Warhol, Britain's David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Gilbert & George, French painting-photography duo Pierre et Gilles and American photographer Bruce Weber, famous for his ad campaigns for the Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren fashion labels.
