The Louvre has withdrawn a large installation by a Dutch art and design collective for being sexually explicit — right on the heels of the Guggenheim’s decision to pull three controversial artworks from its upcoming China show.

The piece — “Domestikator” by the collective Atelier Van Lieshout, whose outline depicts copulation — was to go on view on Oct. 19 in the Louvre’s Tuileries Gardens as part of Hors les Murs, a public art program organized by the Fiac contemporary art fair.

“This is something that should not happen,” Joep van Lieshout, the collective’s founder, said in a telephone interview. “A museum should be an open place for communication. The task of the museum and the press is to explain the work.”

“The piece itself, it’s not really very explicit,” Mr. van Lieshout added. “It’s a very abstracted shape. There are no genitals; it’s pretty innocent.”