From today’s New York Times, “Art Hoax Unites Europe in Displeasure“:
Why didn’t anyone realize right away that there was something seriously weird about the new piece of art in Brussels?
The piece, an enormous mosaic installed in the European Council building over the weekend, was meant to symbolize the glory of a unified Europe by reflecting something special about each country in the European Union.
But wait. Here is Bulgaria, represented as a series of crude, hole-in-the-floor toilets. Here is the Netherlands, subsumed by floods, with only a few minarets peeping out from the water. Luxembourg is depicted as a tiny lump of gold marked by a “for sale” sign, while five Lithuanian soldiers are apparently urinating on Russia.
France? On strike.
wow, this could have been truly brilliant. if the artist had engaged international collaborators as stated in his contract, then they would have to take the piece. as it is, if i understand correctly, he violated the contract and they have legal rather than aesthetic grounds for upset.