Global Issues
EUROPE: Funnily, Bulgaria Is Not a Turkish Toilet
A work of art exhibited this week in Brussels has turned out to be an unusual test for whether some Europeans are able to laugh at themselves. Just as the artist intended.
To mark the beginning of the Czech six-month presidency of the European Union (EU), Czech officials hired artist David Cerny to coordinate a show of works by artists from all 27 EU member states.
The outcome, exhibited in the building of the European Council this week, was a collage of 26 little works, each in the shape of the state represented, and making reference to a common stereotype related to the respective country. Any work depicting Britain was conspicuously missing, perhaps to suggest the historical detachment of that country from the European project.
The Netherlands was represented as towers of minarets rising out of water, France had an 'on strike' tag on it, while Luxembourg was cast in golden material and declared 'for sale'.
Bulgaria was represented as a Turkish toilet, because the country spent more than four centuries as a part of the Ottoman Empire.
'The artists' projects share the playful analysis of national stereotypes as well as original characteristics of the individual cultural identities,' the leaflet at the exhibition said.
But the Bulgarian work proved too playful for some.
Most works stirred little reaction, but the Turkish toilet symbolising Bulgaria provoked outrage among authorities in Sofia and representatives of the country in Brussels. Betina Joteva, spokesperson for the Bulgarian permanent representation to the EU, declared the work 'preposterous, a disgrace, a humiliation for the Bulgarian nation and an offence to our national dignity.'
Bulgarian officials asked the organisers to remove the Turkish toilet, and a group of officials staged a protest in Brussels. The Czech ambassador in Sofia was summoned to provide an explanation.
Many Bulgarians have signed petitions asking for the Bulgarian artist to be deprived of his nationality. Others joked that the Turkish toilet should be replaced by a Russian one at a time when many were freezing without Russian gas.
According to the exhibition leaflet, the Bulgarian work was created by artist Elena Zhelebova. An attached resume of hers noted that she had exhibited in some alternative galleries in Bulgaria.
But as Bulgarian newspapers searched frantically for Zhelebova, the Czech organisers of the exhibition revealed that the entire installation had been created by David Cerny. Cerny had invented names and biographies for the supposed artists from each country.
The Czech artist has created several controversial works. In the early 1990s he painted a Russian tank (a memorial from World War II) pink. He created his own version of one of Prague's landmarks, an equestrian statue of national hero King Wenceslaw: Cerny's national hero is riding an upside-down horse. More recently, he created 'The Shark', which was a figure of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in a tank full of water.
Cerny explains on his website (www.davidcerny.cz) that his team of artists had planned to commission 27 artists, but then did it on their own because they were short of time and money. The artist apologises to the Czech authorities, who were not informed of this change. 'We did not want them (the Czech authorities) to bear the responsibility for this politically incorrect satire. We knew the truth would come out. But before that we wanted to know if Europe is able to laugh at itself.'
Cerny says 'the piece thus also 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.'
Cerny's work seems to have drawn considerable sympathy from Bulgarian artists, if not among officials. 'Most of my friends in the art world like this project very much and approve this artistic gesture,' says Alla Georgieva, a Bulgarian caricaturist, and a member of the Bulgarian Artists' Union.
'My own first reaction was astonishment and laughter,' Georgieva told IPS. 'I had never heard the name of the Bulgarian artist, Elena Zhelebova, and thought that she is a young artist who had studied somewhere abroad. I thought it was a very bold idea and provocative gesture.
'When I understood that this was an idea of Czech artist David Cerny, I felt real pleasure,' adds the artist. 'I congratulate him for this original and fresh project. I very much like this contemporary art strategy of playing with identities.'
The real shame is not the work, says Georgieva, 'but the problems we have with mafia, corruption, a justice which is asleep, trafficking of women. Unfortunately, our authorities have not enough of sense of humour to accept this work of art not only as a joke, but also as a critical point of view from foreigners.'
Now to see what Turkey thinks of that.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service