Entropa

Entropa in-situ at the hall of the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels

Entropa is a satirical sculpture created by controversial Czech artist David Černý and commissioned by the government of the Czech Republic to mark the occasion of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. It was supposedly created jointly by 27 artists and artist groups from all member countries of the EU; it soon came to light, however, that it was made only by Černý and three assistants.

The piece was unveiled on 12 January 2009. Moving and multimedia components were activated on the formal "launch date" of 15 January 2009. It is on display in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels; a copy of it may appear on the wall of the New Scene of the National Theatre in Prague.

The Council of the EU has a rotary presidency system, whereby the governments of member countries exchange leadership every six months. It is customary for the presiding country to place an exhibit in the Justus Lipsius building, which are normally uncontroversial. France, which held the presidency before the Czech Republic, had simply erected a large balloon in the French national colours.

Theme

The sculpture is an ironic jab at the issue of European integration and the stereotypes associated with each country. It is subtitled Stereotypes are barriers to be demolished, in accord with the Czech European Union Presidency motto of Europe without barriers. According to the artist David Černý, Entropa "lampoons the socially activist art that balances on the verge between would-be controversial attacks on national character and undisturbing decoration of an official space".

The piece is 256 square metres (2,760 sq ft) in area and resembles an unassembled model kit containing pieces in the shapes of the 27 member states of the EU. Each piece has a distinctive theme that portrays the stereotypes which the artist perceived to be the most associated with that country. Some of these are portrayed in a particularly provocative manner. Among the pieces which have attracted the most attention are those of Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Slovakia; see below for details on the controversy.

Note also that some of the pieces differ from the form presented in the official booklet, mostly towards greater controversy (most notably the Danish piece, which looks completely innocuous from the official photo, the animals on the Finnish piece, and the Hungarian colours on the Slovak piece).

In an interview for The Times Online, Černý stated that the sculpture was influenced by the Monty Python brand of humour. At the launch ceremony, he added Sacha Baron Cohen and Les Guignols de l'info's portrayal of Nicolas Sarkozy as other influences.

Nations shown

With no clear indication made by the artist nor by the official presentation, various interpretations of a single country can be drawn, and this list is by no means definite.

• Austria, a known opponent of atomic energy, is a green field dominated by nuclear power plant cooling towers; vapor is coming out of them at intervals
• Belgium is presented as a half-full box of half-eaten Praline chocolates
• Bulgaria is depicted by a series of connected "Turkish" squat toilets; neon-like lights connect and illuminate them
• Cyprus is jigsawed (cut) in half
• The Czech Republic's own piece is an LED display, which flashes controversial quotations by Czech President Václav Klaus
• Denmark is built of Lego bricks, and some claim to see in the depiction a face reminiscent of the cartoon controversy, though any resemblance has been denied by the artist
• Estonia is presented with a hammer and sickle-styled power tools, the country has considered a ban on Communist symbols
• Finland is depicted as a wooden floor and an [apparently drunk] male with a rifle, imagining various animals
• France is draped in a "GRÈVE!" ("STRIKE!") banner
• Germany is a series of interlocking autobahns, described as "somewhat resembling a swastika", though that is not universally accepted. The cars move along the roads.
• Greece is depicted as a forest that is entirely burned, possibly representing the 2007 Greek forest fires and the 2008 civil unrest in Greece.
• Hungary features an Atomium made of its common agricultural products melons and Hungarian sausages, based on a floor of peppers
• Ireland is depicted as a brown bog with bagpipes protruding from Northern Ireland; the bagpipes play music every five minutes
• Italy is depicted as a football pitch with several players who appear to be masturbating with the footballs they each hold.
• Latvia is shown as covered with mountains, in contrast to its actual flat landscape
• Lithuania a series of dressed Manneken Pis-style figures urinating on its eastern neighbours; the streams of urine are presented by a yellow lighting glass fibers
• Luxembourg is displayed as a gold nugget with "For Sale" tag
• Malta is a tiny island with its prehistoric dwarf elephant as its only decoration; there's a magnifying glass in front of the elephant
• The Netherlands has disappeared under the sea with only several minarets still visible; the piece is supposed to emit the singing of muezzins
• Poland has a piece with priests erecting the rainbow flag of the Gay rights movement, in the style of the U.S. soldiers raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima.
• Portugal is shown as a wooden cutting board with three pieces of meat in the shape of its former colonies of Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique
• Romania is a Dracula-style theme park, blinking and emitting ghostly sounds at intervals
• Slovakia is depicted as a Hungarian sausage (or a human body tightened by Hungarian tricolour)
• Slovenia is shown as a rock engraved with the words first tourists came here 1213
• Spain is covered entirely in concrete, with a concrete mixer situated near the Rioja region
• Sweden does not have an outline, but is represented as a large Ikea-style self-assembly furniture box, containing Gripen fighter planes (as supplied to the Czech Air Force)
• The United Kingdom, known for its Euroscepticism and relative isolation from the Continent, is "included" as missing piece (an empty space) at the top-left of the work

Reaction

Entropa has inspired debate in Europe since the day of its first unveiling, and in the Czech Republic several days before. Various commentators have noted that this is probably the first such exhibition in the history of art displays on behalf of the rotary Presidency of the EU Council, the usual intent being to go by unnoticed and avoid criticism and offence at all costs. The work drew what have been described by one reporter as "never-before-seen crowd[s]." It has been praised by some viewers for being "hilarious" and for inspiring discussion about art, and has angered and offended others.

Political controversy

The sculpture of Bulgaria

On 13 January 2009—the day after the exhibit was informally unveiled—Bulgaria's ambassador to the EU registered the country's protest with the European Commission, and sent a formal protest note to the Czech government. Bulgaria's depiction in the sculpture, as a series of squat toilets, is one of the most provocative, and after the informal unveiling of Entropa the Bulgarian government demanded that the sculpture be taken down before its official launching. This has not been done, but after continuing complaints, the Bulgarian piece should be removed or veiled on 19 January 2009. Individuals outside the government, as well, expressed outrage about the portrayal:

It is one thing portraying, say, France as a country on strike, but quite another to show my homeland as a toilet. That is downright wrong.

— Georgi Gotev, Bulgarian journalist

Bulgarian news portal News.bg commented that the country's deputy was "obviously interpreting [the exhibit's] idea as an insult attempt."

Jan Vytopil, the man in charge of cultural events during the Czech CEU Presidency, has defended the exhibit, arguing the presence of a "squat toilet Bulgaria" in the presence of the other patently absurd depictions made it clear that the piece seeks to demolish stereotypes. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra also frequently stressed that the government committee which authorized the piece wanted to avoid censorship:

What we approved was a blank map; we decided not to censor anything. When we saw the finished work, we thought it might be too much. That remains to be seen. At any rate, it is an expression of freedom, we decided not to censor it.

— Alexandr Vondra in Lidové noviny on January 13, after doubt had been cast on the existence of Černý's supposed collaborators

On 14 January 2009, the Slovak National Party called on Foreign Affairs Minister Ján Kubiš to demand the removal of the sculpture, calling it an offence to the Slovak nation. On 15 January 2009, Kubiš complied and lodged a formal protest, but did not demand the removal of the sculpture.

Given the controversial nature of the portrayals of other countries, Czech diplomats expect protests from other countries as well; however, As of 14 January 2009 these have yet to materialize. In fact, the public in Poland appears to be largely in favour of Poland's portrayal, with 64% considering it "spot on" and only 13% thinking it "an insult to Polish people", according to an online poll by news portal TVN24.

Ole Molesby, the Danish Ambassador to the Czech Republic, has stated he does not expect the Mohammed caricature protests to begin anew, and that Denmark does not intend to complain. Černý has denied that the similarity is intentional.

Authorship controversy

On 13 January 2009, the authorship of Entropa came into question. Officially, the artwork was to have been an international collaboration between David Černý and artists from the other 26 EU countries. However, on that day, Alexandr Vondra announced the work was probably created by a smaller group of people, explaining that Černý did not inform him about this until the evening before. The original news article in Lidové noviny pointed out that some of the artists' names did not seem to exist in their countries' citizen records and had no Internet footprint. Černý himself admitted on 13 January that the artists' names had been fabricated.

The official booklet provided summaries of past expositions for most of the alleged authors, some of which matched those of known artists, e.g. Austria's "Sabrina Unterberger"'s resumé apparently belonged to Ernst Logar.

Lidové noviny originally listed Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, and the UK as countries for which fictitious artists' identities were given. These specific claims were later retracted, replaced by general charges that some of the names in the booklet are non-existent, their resumés are erroneous, or that the artists deny knowing David Černý or having cooperated with him.

On the evening of 13 January 2009 Černý officially admitted that the piece was really created entirely by him and two friends, and that all the officially supplied artists' identities had been fabricated. In a prepared statement, Černý offered an apology to Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, and the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg "and their offices" for deceiving them, stating he did not want them to be responsible for his fabulations. The statement went on to point out: "We knew the truth would come out. But before that we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself."

Černý's collaborators' names were given as Tomáš Pospiszyl, Viktor Frešo and Krištof Kintera. The authors maintained that a larger international team of people was involved in the project's execution. They explained that they originally wanted to contact artists from all 27 member countries of the EU, but failed due to limited time and financing. Alexandr Vondra responded with an official statement expressing his disappointment and stressed that Černý would bear responsibility for deceiving the government.

Due to the sculpture's potential for controversy, the point that each country's piece was designed by an artist from that country was strongly stressed by the Czech government. According to Lidové noviny, Czech Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra remarked: "The fact remains that we have provided a platform for free artistic expression and that is how Entropa must be viewed. But, had I known the circumstances were different than we had thought for a year and a half, I would not have authorized it." Vondra attempted to distance the Czech government from Černý's work early on, saying,

It is a piece of art—nothing else... If Europe is not strong enough to look at this, it would be a tragedy. It is Europe through the eyes of 27 artists. It is not Europe through the eyes of the Czech presidency.

Fraud accusation

The sculpture reportedly cost 12 million CZK to make, of which 10 million was contributed by New World Resources, a Dutch mining company which owns OKD in the Czech Republic, and 2 million was paid by the Czech government, which has subsequently leased the work for an additional 1.2 million CZK until the end of June. After the fabrication came to light, Černý was accused of misappropriating state funds. He responded that the money was not used at all, since the artists knew they would deviate from the stated project, and would be returned.

Response by authors

Černý originally stated that he meant for the sculpture to be amusing, saying, "Irony is about making fun. It is not meant to offend anybody" and later issuing an official statement saying, "We wanted to see if Europe is able to laugh at itself." On January 15, Černý reflected on the hostile reception of Entropa:

I certainly don't feel like a winner. That's how I'd feel if there were a few shocked Brusselian bureaucrats walking around the piece, shaking their heads, thinking about what those Czechs have done here. We expected this to be treated as a joke, a happening, a nice installation, nothing else. That we are already discussing the removal of some parts doesn't seem like a tremendous success to me. I'd be much happier if it remained whole.

The authors defended their choice to use false names in creating the sculpture by stating the the deception was part of the art:

Grotesque exaggeration and mystification is a hallmark of Czech culture, and creating false identities is one of the strategies of contemporary art.

Černý has also said that making this sculpture in this way was "more fun." Later, however, the artists apologized for the deception, saying, "We apologize to Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and their offices for not informing them about the true state of things and thus deceiving them." Krištof Kintera, one of the true co-authors of the sculpture, said in an interview that the mystification was supposed to last longer, but that it was untenable—both ethically, as the artists didn't want to cause more trouble for Czech diplomacy, and practically, as they couldn't keep answering e-mails using the fabricated artists' identities.

Kintera also commented that the sculpture revealed a divide between Western and Eastern Europe: "We didn't want to defame anyone; advanced European democracies are used to many things, but the East still strives to promote itself in a positive light, so it's not as well attuned to this."

Fate of the sculpture

After the true authorship of the sculpture came to light, Alexandr Vondra stated its continued display was under review because Černý had violated the government's specifications of the project, which—in line with Černý's original description—called for an international collaboration of artists. Already on January 14, 2009, the official Entropa presentation page was withdrawn from the Czech presidency's website. Nevertheless, the sculpture was ceremonially launched on January 15, 2009. Alexandr Vondra again defended the piece, saying, "we consider Entropa to be art, nothing more and nothing else."

During the ceremony, David Černý again apologized to the Czech government and expressed regret that the sculpture was considered offensive. He said the offending pieces would be removed if officials cannot be persuaded about the artists' intentions.

See also

• Art criticism
• Contemporary art

External Links

• Official Entropa booklet in PDF, hosted at eu2009.cz, originally linked there from a page which was later withdrawn (in Czech, English, and French)
• In pictures: Entropa installation BBC News Online 14 January 2009