Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A jest or an insult? EU divided over controversial sculpture

A new art installation that went on display this weekend at the European Council building in Brussels has sparked outrage by lampooning EU member nations.

Commissioned by the Czech Republic, which holds the EU presidency, it was supposed to be a joint artwork by 27 European artists.

Instead, the eight-tonne work, titled Entropa, was created by Czech artist David Cerny and two associates.

It portrays Romania as a Dracula theme park, Luxembourg as a little lump of gold marked "for sale" and Italy as full of soccer players.

France is a hollow covered with a sign reading "on strike," Germany is a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika and Britain, which is notoriously ambivalent about the EU, is missing altogether.

Poland's entry mimics the famous photo of U.S. troops raising the American flag at Iwo Jima, with a group of monks erecting the rainbow flag of the gay community.

The whole sculpture resembles a giant model kit, with snap-out features representing each country.

Agence France Presse reports that officials in Brussels found the sculpture quite amusing after it was unveiled this weekend.
But Bulgaria, which was depicted as a toilet, has summoned the Czech ambassador to Sofia to explain.

The Czech government is reviewing what to do about the work and issued a statement blaming the artist, according to Reuters.

"An agreement of the office of the government with the artist clearly stated that this will be a common work of artists from 27 EU states," Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra said in the statement.

"The full responsibility for violating this assignment and this promise lies with David Cerny," he said.

In fact, Cerny presented the work with biographies and co-ordinates of the 27 artists he claimed created the work.

They all proved to be fictional.

"We knew the truth would come out. But before that, we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself," Cerny said, acknowledging he had made up the artists' names.

The Czech government says it will make a decision on whether to remove the sculpture by Thursday.

Is this art? is it an insult? What do you think??

The piece does do everything that art should do, provoke reactions from those viewing it... But there's always a limit on how far something can be taken.

Then there's the part about the artist's deception - providing fake biographies of fictional artists and, likely, pocketing the commission which had been intended to proliferate through the arts community. That's a down-right fraud and is shameful reason enough not to display this work of art. His motives (to see if the countries could laugh at themselves) are irrelevant.


But it just an uneasy feeling, with how this supposed artist who acted more like a propaganda-monger, belittling some countries he obviously did not have (well, let's say at heart). In addition this so-called artist was also ultra dishonest making up names and so on and has simply "pooped" on the trust that was bestowed upon him by many. This guy is a fraud!

Having not seen the entire piece, I'd like to know how the artist represented his homeland, the Czech Republic. If he lampooned his home country to the same extent as the others, An argument can be made to keep it. If he omitted the Czech Republic or portrayed it in more of a positive light then the others, then remove the piece all together.

I'm all for artistic license, but it is just insulting to have your country depicted as a toilet, let alone as a series of roads forming a swastika.
I support the artist's right to create and show there work, just as I support the EU's right to put it in the trash bin
.

What the EU should do is not pay the "artist" for this work of "art" at all, and return it to him... let him do what he wants with it afterwords, he can hang it up, stare at it, and laugh at it all he wants in his own time and away from everyone else.

Thoughts???

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