THE SWEET, SWEET RAVAGES OF WAR

Excusing the occasional

homo-slaying

and

director-stab

, the Netherlands has a reputation for being a pretty easy-going, tolerant place. There's one group here, however, that nobody dares talk about. A group that wields such fell, utter influence over Dutch politics and society that even hinting at joking about implying a whisper of a suggestion of a muffled cough about their foibles is tantamount to professional (and potentially biological) suicide. That group is, of course, Mutilated World War I Soldiers. Our friend, Ashkan Honarvar, learned this lesson the hard way. Last week he was putting on a quiet little art exhibition in Haarlem when stormtroopers from the local government tromped in and kicked him and his fellow artists out of the building for offending the city's sensibilities. What brazen thoughtcrime were they trying to put the clampdown on, you ask? Recreating those famous portraits of deformed Tommies and Doughboys with sweet, delicious candy taking the place of all those gruesome sutures and grafts and open cavities. After thoroughly raging against the machine, we talked to Ashkan about what it's like to be crushed under foot by our nation's unabashed Dead Guy supremacists.

Vice: Is this series a product of your fascination for disabled people? Are you such a person that continues to stare upon seeing a mutilated person on the street?

Ashkan:

I have always found many forms of physical defects/deformation fascinating, war wounds are certainly one of them. It is not so much the mutilation but the shapes and the disbelief of its existence. Some of the faces of these soldiers almost look like abstract art. I think I'm no different from other people when it comes to looking at deformed people. Not every deformity fascinates me though, it is also about context.

Why did you decide to combine candy and mutilation in an art project? Were you not afraid of the iron fist of the Dead Soldier lobby crushing down on you or that now when you're eating candy you'll think of festering wounds?

Well, I'm quite used to that sort of stuff. The last three years I've only worked with such images.

What is your favorite candy?

Kinder Surprise.

Good. Well, now that we've gotten all that out of the way, let's have a look to some of your work, paired up with the images you've used as inspiration! Mmmmmm-MMMMMMM!

NILS DE LANGE and ALICE SOUGUIR