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Czech artist's controversial EU art comes down
2009-05-11
BRUSSELS (AFP) - A huge art installation that prompted an outcry by depicting stereotypes of EU member states, including a squat toilet, was being removed on Monday from a European Union building. Its creator, Czech artist David Cerny, announced last month that he wanted to remove his work, called "Entropa", from its central Brussels home in protest against the fall of the centre-right government of former Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek -- who lost a parliamentary confidence vote. He has said the government was "wiped out by the old Bolsheviks and socialists and President (Vaclav) Klaus". "I want to send a message that I don't want to have anything in common with the new government, or semi-government, it's not even a government," he said by phone in Prague Monday. The Czech Republic holds the EU's rotating presidency for the first half of this year and Entropa was installed in January as the official artwork for the six months at the helm. Entropa is a symbolic map of Europe depicting stereotypes attributed to the 27 EU member countries. Commissioned by Prague, the work covering 170 square feet (16 square metres) has angered above all Bulgaria, portrayed as a "Turkish" squat toilet. At the opening ceremony, Cerny apologised to all who had felt insulted, and the presidency later covered the Bulgarian image with cloth, bowing to official protests from Sofia. The Cerny map of Europe also includes an image of France "on strike" and Germany criss-crossed with autobahns to create a shape some have likened to a swastika. Italy is covered with footballers holding strategically placed balls and Sweden is a box of pre-fab furniture. Britain is absent completely, a poke at London's perceived lack of commitment to the European project. While controversial, the work often attracted unusually large crowds to the huge atrium of the European Council building, which regularly hosts EU summits and ministerial meetings. It was supposed to be a collaboration between artists from throughout the EU, but before it was officially unveiled Cerny admitted that it was the work of himself and a few friends. As Cerny waived his fee for the work, amid the row over its production, he now owns it and is free to take it wherever he wishes, a Czech EU presidency official said. "The Czech (EU) Presidency preferred the option to let the installation remain in Brussels as originally planned," a spokesman for interim Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said in a statement. "However, the presidency fully respects artistic freedom," he added. Not everyone was sad to see it go. "We are happy, finally," said Betina Joteva, spokeswoman for the Bulgarian EU office. Cerny said he planned to hang the work at the Dox contemporary art gallery in Prague for two months over the summer. The Czech artist and sculptor, whose previous most famous exhibit was a Soviet tank painted pink, said it was more important to him where the work was displayed than what it's worth, though he would want to recoup his almost 500,000 euro (600,000 dollar) production costs. "I would rather see it getting an offer for exhibiting on the project wall at (London's) Tate Gallery or some other nice place, that would be cool," he told AFP. He refused to say whether the black cloth over the offending Bulgarian exhibit would now be removed. "It is a secret so that people will have some wish to go there and see it" he said, laughing.
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