James Lileks: When the Battle Over Artistic Freedom Goes Over the Edge

The Newhouse News Service ^ | January 21, 2004 | James Lileks

[quidnunc]

Everyone talks about insufferably pretentious art, but no one does anything about it. Until now.

Perhaps you read the story: Zvi Mazel, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, shows up at an art gallery and comes across an installation called "Snow White and the Madness of Truth." Picture a rectangular pool of blood-red water and a tiny boat bearing the picture of Hanadi Jaradat, a woman who murdered 21 people in Haifa last October.

The artist wanted a reaction? He got one. News reports made it sound as if the ambassador rampaged through a gallery, knocking over waiters and patrons, yelling for vengeance. Not really. Swedish TV covered the event; the evening news showed the ambassador unplugged the lights around the display without saying a word. Then he took one of the spotlights and threw it into the red-colored water. Outraged, yes. But hardly unhinged.

-snip-

The artist, Dror Feiler, is an Israeli-born Jew now living in Sweden. He insists he's against suicide bombing, which is nice to know. You can see how someone might mistake a pool of blood with a picture of a smiling terrorist as something less than total condemnation of the intifada. Pictures of the victims? No. Pictures of the devastation? Of course not. Too literal. What counts is the existential mystery, the acte gratuit, the impenetrable constructs of oppression and religion that we can roll around in our mouths all day because we don't have to worry that someone will come into our coffeehouse and blow herself up. Yet.

-snip-

[stylin_geek]

Bump

[veronica]

BTTT.

[Charlotte Corday]

Ambassador Mazel's action was a more pointed and more elegant example of "performance art" than just about anything else that passes under that name.

[ml/nj]

He was clutching a saxophone as he made his remarks, and for the sake of the Swedes one can only hope he didn't use it. Here's what Feiler wrote about his music: "As a new dimension and complement to the orderly dialectics of classical Marxism it uses the theory of complexity: a method of complications and implications as an antithesis to the dialectic method of restricted sequence of cause and effect."

Translation: You can't dance to it, and it makes dogs leave the room.

Priceless!

ML/NJ

[dennisw]

 

 

 

Ping list for Islamic Jihad and terrorism. 3 pings per day. 
On or off, let me know by freepmail anytime.

 

 

[dennisw]

This loony tune artist thinks he's Che Guevara with a saxaphone.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

BTTT

[Valin]

How did the artist feel? Right after the ambassador's spontaneous criticism, Feiler addressed the gallery patrons. "He sabotaged our art," Feiler said, "and he showed how the democratic thoughts of Israel are."

I guess some people just have trouble handling constructive criticism.

[dennisw]

A must read homepage about the loony tune artist Dror Feiler--->

http://www.avantart.com/feiler.html

About my music, Che Guevara and the Revolution ---->

http://www.avantart.com/music/drorreve.htm

[Valin]

Before I click on these a small question. Will I get a sharp shooting pain in my head? :-)

[dennisw]

This guy is a supreme headache producer. I don't cruise the websites of artiste poseurs but this guy must be somewhere near the top. Think Che Guevara armed with a saxaphone, that's how he fancies himself.

[veronica]

This loony tune artist thinks he's Che Guevara with a saxaphone.

Because that's what he is.

[okie01]

This loony tune artist thinks he's Che Guevara with a saxaphone.

Because that's what he is.

Che Guevara was a pretentious loser, too. But, by all accounts, he had some leadership skills and personal courage.

I rather imagine this Feiler creep has neither.