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Artist creates sensation by mocking EU nations

A new installation celebrating the Czech Republic’s six-month presidency of the European Union has achieved the ultimate accomplishment of any piece of art: it created a sensation.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Is it a joke? A very expensive art hoax? A sly, shockingly satirical look at the 27 nations that make up the European Union?

Bulgaria is depicted as a squat toilet, which it has formally protested. Germany is shown as laced by autobahns roughly in the shape of a swastika. The Netherlands is covered by floodwaters pierced only by minarets of mosques.

And Sweden is — what else? — a box of prefab furniture.

Whatever one’s reaction, the new installation celebrating the Czech Republic’s six-month presidency of the European Union has achieved the ultimate accomplishment of any piece of art: it created a sensation.

The artist says it is just tongue-in-cheek stuff. But he apologized Thursday for insulting individual countries.

On Thursday, the Czech deputy premier, Alexandr Vondra, came to Brussels to see for himself what the brouhaha at the EU’s headquarters was all about.

“Entropa” — by David Cerny, a Czech artist who is no stranger to controversy — dominates the lobby of the EU’s Justus Lipsius Building. Measuring 25 x 25 meters (yards) it bears the outlines of EU nations on a tubular grid showing each nation, warts and all.

The work was switched on for Vondra and journalists on Thursday. Toy cars on Germany’s autobahns immediately started moving, Greek forest fires lit up, the eyes of famed Romanian Count Dracula began flashing a diabolic red and Italian soccer players did unspeakable things with the ball.

Image: Bulgaria in controversial artwork
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - JANUARY 14: A close up of Bulgaria pictured as a Turkish Lavatory, part of the new art installation by Czech artist David Cerny is displayed at the European Council building, on January 14, 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. Cerny has caused a diplomatic row after he admitted that he made a \"hoax\" artwork taking inspiration from the British Monty Python satire to test the EU's sense of humour and that he also misled his own government on the 10 milllion Crown commission (GBP350,000) by making the piece with help from his friends instead of artists from the EU's 27 member countries (Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)Mark Renders / Getty Images Europe

The installation also shows France as being on strike, while Polish clergy raise — Iwo Jima-style — the rainbow flag of the gay community in their arch-Catholic country. The Czech Republic itself is represented by an LED screen streaming quotes from its euroskeptic president.

Britain is completely absent, reflecting its traditional aloofness from European integration.

While he agreed to remove items that offended any nation’s pride, Cerny insisted Britain cannot come into his Europe. Unaccountably, there was no immediate hint of a British protest.

The Czech government says Cerny lied to them because he was paid euro50,000 ($65,870) to round up the works of European artists representing all 27 EU nations and create a joint project, according to Vondra.

The Czech deputy premier was careful to defend artistic freedom when he spoke to the media after viewing the exhibit. “Entropa is just art, nothing more, nothing less,” he said — but added that any country that wants to be taken from the work will be.

Taking down the entire work would go too far, he said. “Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain there is no place for censorship in Europe.”

Image: Germany in controversial artwork
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - JANUARY 14: A close up of Germany with its autobahns in which similarities to a swastika have been drawn, part of the new art installation by Czech artist David Cerny, is displayed at the European Council building, on January 14, 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. Cerny has caused a diplomatic row after he admitted that he made a \"hoax\" artwork taking inspiration from the British Monty Python satire to test the EU's sense of humour and that he also misled his own government on the 10 milllion Crown commission (GBP350,000) by making the piece with help from his friends instead of artists from the EU's 27 member countries (Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)Mark Renders / Getty Images Europe

Cerny promised to repay his fee to the government.

“We are really sorry that we insulted individual nations,” he told reporters, singling out Bulgaria. “That’s a pity that some countries don’t like it.”

But the artwork has also drawn large crowds of spectators to the Justus Lipsius building, where art usually depicts a more saccharine Europe — French castles, Greek sunsets or Dutch canals.

Paul Gerard, a Frenchmen who works nearby, said he wasn’t shocked.

“It’s true. The French are always striking,” he laughed.

Olga Capa, a Portuguese working at the European Commission, found the show “a bit shocking ... but not offensive, really.”

Cerny said the Czech government asked him to produce a concept piece of “27 artists (but) I quickly figured that would be technically and financially difficult to do.” The work in Brussels was created by “about 10 people” in the Czech Republic and abroad, he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Cerny noted that today’s Czech leaders have a record of opposition to totalitarian rule.

“I really hope those guys have a sense of humor,” he added.