An art gallery in Shanghai, China, has apologised for presenting a display that graded women’s photos from “prettiest to ugliest.”

Song Ta’s video artwork “Uglier and Uglier” contained over 5,000 photos and recordings of women secretly shot on a university campus in real life. The artist then evaluated them in order of how appealing he thought they were.

The OCAT Shanghai gallery said that the exhibit has been withdrawn following social media backlash.

“After receiving criticism, we re-evaluated the content of this artwork and the artist’s explanation, we found it disrespected women, and the way it was shot has copyright infringement issues,” the museum was quoted as saying on China’s Weibo (a social media platform) by BBC.

“As a museum that supports diversity, we will take this as a warning, improve our services and treat everyone with empathy,” they added.

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Song developed the contentious exhibit in 2013, and it has since been included in a number of displays.

According to the South China Post, he says he videotaped the women as they went by him on a university campus in his introduction to the work. Then, to make the seven-hour film, he ranked them from prettiest to ugliest in terms of how appealing they were to him.

“So if you want to see the campus queen, you have to go to the museum as early as possible. Otherwise, as dusk comes, it will become a living hell in this place,” he said.

Song told Vice magazine in 2019 that he and a team of aides digitally categorised the photos into categories like “forgivably ugly” and “unforgivably ugly.”

He justified the project by saying: “I think I have the right to tell the truth.”

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Many Weibo users were incensed that the gallery had shown and promoted the “misogynistic” and “intrusive” artwork.

“It’s already 2021, how can you still objectify women so boldly, without any shame?” one user was quoted as saying by BBC.

“This artwork is not only insulting but infringes on individuals’ portrait rights, and these women didn’t even know they were being filmed,” another wrote.