George Savage

Subversive art finds a home in Europe

Some things are just deliciously good fun.

The Czech Republic has kicked off its six month presidency of the European Union by displaying a sculpture mosaic in Brussels, ostensibly the product of 27 artists each contributing an evocative symbol of his home country, but actually a gigantic prank by Czech artist David Cerny.  This is my kind of subversive art:  nothing sacrilegious or obscene, just outrageous satire.

The New York Times covers the brouhaha here.  Be sure to check out close-up photos of some of the more illuminating country depictions.  The BBC has more good pix here.

The Times of London gives you the feel from a European viewpoint:

Official art is an oxymoron. The artist officiates. And morons miss the point. Artists from Cellini and the Impressionists to Turner and Picasso have mystified officialdom. This happened again yesterday when the huge art work called Entropa was installed in the foyer of the main European Council building in Brussels. It was commissioned to mark the start of the Czech six-month presidency of the EU. And it was meant to depict the essence of each of the 27 member states captured by different artists.

So Romania is represented by a Dracula theme park; France by a banner labelled Grève (strike); and Germany with autobahns that look like a swastika. The eight-tonne mosaic is a mobile as well as an installation. So Lithuania urinating on Russia lights up, and Italian footballers make lubricious movements with their footballs.

The opening ceremony was artistically non-communautaire. The loudspeakers failed. The Czech Deputy Prime Minister apologised to Bulgaria for its portrayal as a squat toilet. And David Cerny, who had created the work himself, said: “We seriously expected it to be taken as a joke.”

The United Kingdom is represented by a blank, to suggest its semi-detached connection with Europe. The artist has tried to get to the pith of national stereotypes and prejudices, by taking the pith out of national pride. He has not accepted any of the commissioning money, though his art work is probably now worth more than its proposed fee. He may have feet of Klee, another joker. Irony is a tricky mode in paint as well as ink. But critics might conclude that the money spent on mocking national pretensions is quite as useful as the Common Fishing Policy.