David Černý is a hero

The Czechs have just taken on the EU presidency, and when you take over that position one of the first things you are required to do in celebration is break out the public art. So David Černý, the zany yet still kinda smart Czech sculptor who’s Europe’s less popular version of Damien Hirst—he parodied that creepy shark and floated Saddam in formaldehyde—was given a £350,000 commission to sum up the theme “Europe without barriers” in a major new piece. When he announced that he’d secured 27 different artists from separate EU countries to partake in his massive EU-sponsored public art project about national stereotypes, Europe believed him. But Europe’s naïve like that.

That was yesterday afternoon, when the artist was just “the guy who made the semi-offensive thing that glued together different European conventions.” No one suspected—and why should they?—that he’d made up false identities, web sites, and portfolios for every one of the artists involved in the massive project he’d constructed and put on display at the Justus Lipsius building of the EU Council, the very heart of bureaucratic Brussels. Only later that evening, when Bulgaria formally complained to the project’s EU sponsors because they didn’t like seeing themselves portrayed as a toilet, the truth gradually began to unravel.

Highlights here include:

– Romania is a Dracula theme park.

– The Dutch is Holland underwater, with only minaret towers peering above, playing on their rising level of Islamic immigration.

– Bulgaria, aka Turkey’s backyard, is an old-fashioned outdoor shithouse.

– Austria, supposedly  well-known for being anti-nuke (though clearly not well-known enough) is a nuclear power station.

– Britain isn’t there at all. That’s right. Going one better than Martin Creed’s “Lights go on, lights go off.” thing, British Euro-art-visionary Khalid Asadi decided to welch out, to reflect Britain’s typical attitude of welching-out on EU projects. Nice one.

– Sweden is an IKEA box.

– Poland is some Iwo Jima-style Catholic monks raising a gay pride flag.

– Germany is a network of autobahns, their pattern curling into the merest hint of a swastika.

– Lithuania is five men in uniform pissing outward onto Russia.

– Luxembourg, made of gold, is plonked beside a “For Sale” sign. Because you know they’re fuck-off rich.

– France is a bunch of striking workers.

– Slovenia is a complex symbolical piece hailing “The delights of masturbation.”

Černý’s a prankster whose past work includes two men pissing into a Czech-shaped lake, so it was very unlikely the EU was going to get another round of sucked-lozenge Henry Moore-style humanoids all linking arms to symbolise, y’know, unity and that. Still, he’s apologised. Kind of. He “Wanted to see if Europe could laugh at itself,” he said. But why say sorry? Nothing unites Europe more than a vague mutual antagonism. Wasn’t that the whole point of the commission?