Walker Art Gallery replaces Tinted Venus with sculpture of black child to explore links to slavery and empire

Removing, albeit temporarily, one of the best-known, most popular sculptures from a gallery is undoubtedly a bold act, acknowledged the curator Alex Patterson. “We want to ruffle a few feathers,” she said. “If you’re going to do it, do it with a bang.”

Patterson is speaking to the Guardian in the sculpture gallery of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, which normally has John Gibson’s 19th-century Tinted Venus stopping people in their tracks.