(Repeats story published late on Monday)
By Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Reuters Life!) - EU President Czech
Republic unveiled an official mosaic in one of the bloc's key
buildings on Monday that uses stereotypes to depict member
countries.
The massive temporary art installation beneath the glass and
steel-framed ceiling inside the European Council building in
Brussels where EU leaders hold their summits portrays individual
countries in map forms attached to a blue tubular grid.
France's map is emblazoned with the word GREVE! (French for
strike) in red, a reference to its frequent industrial disputes.
Romania is a Dracula theme park, Sweden is a do-it-yourself
furniture flatpack and Britain does not appear at all.
"Entropa" is the joint work of artists representing each EU
member country and the brainchild of 41-year-old Czech artist
David Cerny, famed at home for re-painting a Soviet tank pink.
"Irony is about making fun. It is not meant to offend
anybody," Cerny said of his work for the Czech EU presidency,
which runs until June 30. The mosaic will be dismantled at the
end of the Czech presidency, when Sweden will take over.
"The EU is often such a serious thing, I think people have
to take a lighter approach from time to time. It is a collection
of national cliches."
The mosaic, whose blue tubular design resembles the kind of
plastic grid used to protect pieces in modelling kits,
represents Luxembourg as a lump of gold on sale to the highest
bidder, Bulgaria as the floor of a toilet and Finland as a
wooden floor with animals on it.
The Netherlands is depicted as a sea with minarets rising
from the waves, a possible reference to simmering religious
tensions that culminated in the murder of Dutch film director
and Islam critic Theo van Gogh by a Muslim militant in 2004.
Poland, one of Europe's most religiously observant nations
where the Catholic Church retains considerable sway, has priests
waving a rainbow flag, a symbol of inclusiveness and diversity
as well as pride for gay communities.
The 8-tonne mosaic will go "live" later this week, when
certain country "pieces" will start to move and make noises.
That will apply, for example, to Germany's cars on a
motorway network and to Italian soccer players practising on
their national map with goalposts at the country's northern and
southern ends.
Britain, perceived by many to be one of the bloc's more wary
and eurosceptic members, has been left off the map altogether.
Denmark is made of Lego, its national toy icon, and Sweden
lies within a flatpack made by locally based IKEA, the world's
largest furniture retailer.
Traditionally, countries that hold the EU presidency
construct a decoration or sculpture in Brussel's EU quarter
during their tenure, usually in the European Council building.
(Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague)
