Czech sculpture tests EU sense of humour: "We're Ikea ...of course," said one grinning Swedish official, referring to the representation of his country as a giant flatpack of the kind often found at the Nordic country's retail giant. "Who are you?" he asked. But his colleague was unsure. She thought she was the "one with meat on it."This "one with the meat" turns out to be Portugal, representing colonisation.
I don’t like fat and I don’t like colonialism. Empire-building, the influence of colonisation on post-colonial history, economy, science and culture, the cultural output of colonised societies, feminism and post-colonialism, the state of post-colonialism in a contemporary economic and cultural context – all these are some of the general themes in this field. What were the experiences of the colonised and the colonisers?
Carla de Miranda [aka Beatriz Cunha]
David Cerny: Entropa is not a real pan-European work by artists-provocateurs, but a mystification. At first glance, it looks like a project to decorate official space, which has degenerated to an unhindered display of national traumas and complexes. Individual states in the European Union puzzle are presented by non-existent artists. They have their names, artificially created identities, and some have their own Web sites. Each of them is the author of a text explaining their motivation to take part in the common project. That all was created by David Cerny, Kristof Kintera and Tomas Pospiszyl, with the help of a large team of colleagues from the Czech Republic and abroad.
"Entropa est une oeuvre d’art, pas une déclaration politique, c’est conçu pour être amusant et ironique, l’humour peut parfois être une catharsis", a expliqué l’artiste mercredi dans un entretien avec l’AFP.
David Cerny says hoax EU sculpture inspired by Monty Python [...] to test whether the EU had a sense of humour.
Europe needs the 'shocking' Czechs: I agree it is all great fun. But I am not sure that the Czech government will share the joke. Nor will the EU officials who were already very unsettled by the iconolastic sculpture in the first place.
This story is not over. I think a campaign is needed to save this installation.
