The artist Paul Yore stands accused of creating and peddling child pornography as part of the installation Everything Is Fucked, which was on view last year at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts in St Kilda, Melbourne.

Yore has pleaded not guilty, the Australian Associated Press reports, and Jason Smith, the director of the Heide Museum of Modern Art, also in Melbourne, has come out in support of the artist in Melbourne’s magistrates court.

“Difficult, confronting, challenging—that’s what artists have always done and will continue to do,” Smith said in court on August 18. Yore, for his part, has said that he intended the piece as an homage to the similarly provocative work of artist Mike Brown.

Installation view of Everything Is Fucked.
Photo: John Brash, courtesy Paul Yore.

The collaborative installation, which included psychedelic mannequins, neon quilts, an embroidered text art piece that read “Fuck the Pope,” and images of Justin Bieber, also featured a series of collages in which Yore had grafted images of children’s heads onto images of nude adult bodies. The latter spurred a complaint in May 2013, and the current court case. After receiving the complaint, detective Sam Johnson obtained a warrant and, with the help of a colleague, removed seven artworks from the installation. The installation was under review at the time police removed the offending images, and was eventually found to be suitable for viewers under 18, but by then it was too late.

Yore’s hearing resumes August 19.