Entropa
The artwork Entropa ( suitcase word from ' Entropy ' and ' Europe ') is an installation by the Czech sculptor David Černý for the entrance hall in the building of the Council of the European Union ( Justus Lipsius Building ) in Brussels on the occasion of the Czech EU Council Presidency in 2009 .
The work of art, around 16 meters wide, 16 meters high and weighing around 8 tons, was supposed to represent the then 27 member states of the European Union in symbols. Immediately after its unofficial opening on January 12, 2009, the installation sparked violent reactions from some government officials because they saw their country denigrated by the way it was displayed. In contrast, the artist stated that his installation should be viewed humorous. For the work commissioned by the Prague government, as originally agreed, 26 additional artists for the respective countries were to contribute under Černý's direction. Even before the official unveiling on January 15, it became known that Černý and his staff had designed the entire installation themselves and had invented the names, biographies and homepages of the supposedly participating artists. Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra confirmed this information in an official statement from the Council Presidency on January 13, stating that he was unpleasantly surprised. The Bulgarian government was most indignant about the portrayal of their country as a collection of "Turkish toilets" connected by pipes.
In protest against the overthrow of the former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek , Černý had the work of art dismantled early in May in Brussels and exhibited in the Czech Republic.
The EU countries were presented provocatively in the form of a plastic model kit:
- Belgium as a box of chocolates
- Bulgaria, symbolized as a collage of Turkish standing toilets , was the first country to insist on removing this depiction.
- Denmark as a collection of Lego bricks, the arrangement of which can be understood as a motif from the series The Face of Muhammad
- Germany as an area with highways, the arrangement of which can be understood as a swastika
- Estonia as a post-communist state with a "motorized" hammer and sickle (attached to a Bosch hammer and an electric hedge trimmer)
- Finland as a wooden floor with red exotic animals (hippopotamus, alligator, elephant) and a crawling green human
- France with a banner saying "Grève" (strike)
- Greece as a burned forest
- Ireland as bagpipes (with the pipes in Northern Ireland )
- Italy as a soccer field with soccer players shaking soccer balls in front of their hips with movements reminiscent of masturbation
- Flat Latvia as a wannabe mountain landscape
- Lithuania with Manneken-Pis figures (symbol of Brussels ) with Schapka hat and military jacket urinating towards the east (Belarus and Russia)
- Luxembourg as a gold nugget with the label "For Sale"
- Malta as a tiny island with a pygmy elephant
- The Netherlands as a floodplain from which only a few minarets protrude
- Austria as a green landscape with the four cooling towers of a nuclear power plant
- Poland as a potato field on which four Catholic priests hoist a rainbow flag in the order of the United States Marine Corps War Memorial
- Portugal as a wooden cutting board with three pieces of meat in the shape of the former colonies of Brazil , Angola and Mozambique
- Romania as a brightly colored Dracula castle
- Sweden packed in an IKEA box
- The Slovakia as sausage, which in Hungarian is tied colors
- Slovenia with a historical inscription carved in stone: “first tourists came here 1213” , a reference to a graffiti from the Postojna Cave , which is dated from 1213
- Spain as a concreted surface, with a cement mixer in the Basque Country
- Czech Republic as a gold-framed LED screen, on which ecology and EU-critical slogans of President Václav Klaus can be displayed
- Hungary with Brussels' landmark, the Atomium , made from melons and Hungarian sausages
- Cyprus as an island breaking in two
- United Kingdom : In the upper left corner of the work of art there is a gap that alludes to the traditionally Eurosceptic country.
Instead of scandalizing the work of art because of the legend of its creation (and thus avoiding a content-related preoccupation with the extreme clichés of the individual countries), one could also see this legend as part of the work of art, which undoubtedly as a whole is "a real Černý" is. In an article entitled Die Humorprobe , the art magazine Art noted : “You could have guessed what would happen if Černý received an order of such political and public importance. His bronze trabant on feet, with which he commented on the upheavals of 1989, was actually rather cute. But even his kits, with which you could either assemble Jesus Christ or a rape victim from individual parts, seemed less harmless. And certainly not his life-size figure of Saddam Hussein , who floated in a kind of aquarium in Damian-Hirst 's style. The client [...] should perhaps have considered that before choosing Mr. Schwarz (German for Černý) and his appropriately colored humor. "
Web links
- In pictures: Entropa installation. BBC News, Jan 14, 2009 (Photos)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Roth: Of toilets and other symbols. The installation “Entropa” and its reception in Bulgaria. In: Andreas Hartmann, Peter Höher, Christiane Cantauw, Uwe Meiners, Silke Meyer (eds.): The power of things. Symbolic communication and cultural action. Festschrift for Ruth-E. Mohrmann. Waxmann, Münster 2011, pp. 399-416
- ↑ tagesschau.de : Protest against change of government in Prague: The end of “Entropa” ( Memento from May 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Bulgaria protested. news.ORF.at, 2009
- ↑ Susanne Altmann: The humor test. ( Memento of the original from August 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. art-magazin.de, January 14, 2009
