So, are there any Brainstorm readers anxiously wondering what happened with the Czech artist David Cerny’s controversial artwork, which I blogged on last week? No? Well, just in case you’re shy, and don’t want to admit you are interested in such silly stuff, recall that Cerny was commissioned by the Czech government to hire several artists, representing the 27 countries that make up the EU, to collaborate in making a work of art that would celebrate the unity of Europe. Cerny was then going to put these individual works together and make a single work of art to hang in the EU headquarters in Brussels. Instead, Cerny and a few friends secretly made the entire work by themselves, merrily replacing what were to have been honorific works of art symbolizing each country with naughty works of art making fun of each country. The work was “unveiled” a few weeks ago, and when people realized how insulting it was, the reaction instantly turned negative.
Bulgaria, in particular, was incensed. Their country was “represented” by a map of Bulgaria consisting of images of primitive, squat-style potties. Now, at the request of the Bulgarian government, the EU has draped a black cloth over the part of Cerny’s work that represents Bulgaria. So now there’s a humongous work of art with one part draped in black. So much for the idea of harmony, the parts fitting into the whole, and all of that.
Of course, there’s precedence for covering up parts of art that are deemed offensive by the powers that be. To take one prominent example, the Catholic Church decided that several of those dangling Michelangelo nudes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were too — well, too nude. They responded by covering up the too-nude parts with fig leaves. (Subsequently, the authorities changed their minds and removed the fig leaves, returning the ceiling back to the way we now see it.)
Any kind of fig-leafing causes an audience to wonder, “Hey, what’s under that fig leaf?” In the case of Cerny’s EU artwork, the drapery both calls attention to a kind of toilet that may or may not be common in Bulgaria, and emphasizes the unbridgeable chasm that divides the oftentimes effete contemporary art world from everyone else.
Cerny’s silly thing didn’t function as an EU work of art. It failed in the marketplace of ideas. It’s time to move it to a gallery. There, before it finds its buyer, cool people can wander through and smile at one another. That’s what it’s really for.
