Hundreds of Polish people have staged a banana-eating protest over the National Museum's decision to censor "indecent" art.
About 1000 people gathered outside the Warsaw museum after its director removed a 1973 video by Polish artist Natalia LL titled "Consumer Art".
The video, which featured a woman eating bananas in a lewd pose, had been on display for a few years.
But it was removed last week.
The museum also removed an installation by artist Katarzyna Kozyra depicting a woman walking two men dressed up as animals on a leash.
About 1000 people gathered outside Warsaw's National Museum to protest censorship. Source: AAP
Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported the museum's director, Jerzy Miziolek, asked to have the pieces removed last week, saying "certain topics related to gender shouldn't be explicitly shown".
Protesters said censorship in any form could no longer be tolerated.
"We are against censorship in our country, especially in arts," Marta Syrewicz said as she walked towards
the protest with a banana in hand.
People around the country, including several high-profile Polish actors and politicians, also took to social media to post photos of themselves eating bananas with the hashtags #jesuisbanan and #bananagate.
The museum's decision was not the only recent form of censorship members of the Polish public have called out.
The conservative Law and Justice government has been criticised for interfering with cultural institutions like theatres and museums since it took power in 2015.
In 2017, the Culture Ministry refused to pay a promised $110,000 to a Polish theatre festival in Poznan because the government disagreed with festival curator Oliver Frljic.
The Culture Ministry published a statement after the banana protest saying it had received a letter from a concerned parent who said their child had been "traumatised" by the exhibition in question, which also featured images of women undressing and children stabbed with knives.
Selfies with the hashtags #jesuisbanan and #bananagate flooded social media after the protest. Source: AAP
Museum director Jerzy Miziolek also responded to the criticisms and said his decision to remove the exhibition had nothing to do with censorship.
"The changes to the exhibition are in fact part of our commitment and new more dynamic vision for the functioning of the institution and not the depreciation of the museum's collection or its censorship," Mr Miziolek said.
The Law and Justice government has supported more conservative, tradition values over its four years in office, embracing catholicism and rejecting LGBT rights ahead of Poland's parliamentary elections this year.
The National Museum has since promised to reinstate Natalia LL's video.
