Update: This article, Europe Gets a Taste of Czech Art Hoax and Self-mockery from DW-World.de, is particularly interesting on the prank aspect of Czech culture and Czech art.
Czech-EU Artwork Raises Hackles In Brussels
by Luke Allnutt
Radio Free Europe
January 14, 2009
The enfant terrible of Czech art is kicking up a storm in Brussels. David Cerny — whose works include painting a tank pink and giant babies climbing up a television tower — has a new exhibition in Brussels to mark the Czech Republic’s six-month presidency of the EU.
The giant installation depicts all the 27 member states as snap-off-able pieces, like you’d find in a modeling kit.
Originally, the idea was that artists from each member state would provide the “pieces”: you might have expected tasteful depictions of windmills, a plate of dumplings, or a man sitting in a sauna.
Instead, Bulgaria was represented by a group of toilets, Germany by highways arranged in the vague shape of a swastika, and France as a nation of strikers. The United Kingdom wasn’t even there. (See pictures of Cerny’s work.) Continue reading “David Cerny: Detente Czech Style”