← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · weisbrot
Thread ID: 11934 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2004-01-17
2004-01-17 17:38 | User Profile
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1514&u=/afp/20040117/wl_mideast_afp/sweden_israel_art_040117141807&printer=1[/url]
Israeli ambassador kicked out of Swedish museum after vandalizing art
Sat Jan 17, 9:18 AM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Israel's ambassador to Sweden was kicked out of Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities after he destroyed an artwork featuring a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber, the artists said.
The incident, widely reported in the Swedish media, occurred at the opening on Friday of the "Making Differences" exhibit, part of an upcoming international conference on genocide hosted by the Swedish government and in which Israel is scheduled to participate.
Sweden's foreign ministry said Saturday it would summon ambassador Zvi Mazel to a meeting to explain himself.
"We will contact him on Monday to arrange a meeting. We want to give him a chance to explain himself. We feel that it is unacceptable for him to destroy art in this way," ministry spokeswoman Anna Larsson told AFP.
The art installation, called Snow White and located in the museum's courtyard, featured a basin filled with red water, designed to look like blood.
A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa suicide bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.
"For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador to Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality," the ambassador told Swedish news agency TT.
According to museum director Kristian Berg, the ambassador went berserk in front of the 400 specially-invited guests when he saw the piece.
"He pulled out the plugs and threw one of the spotlights into the fountain which caused the entire installation to short-circuit and made it totally life-threatening," he told TT.
One of the two artists who created the work, Israeli-born Dror Feiler, told AFP the ambassador was "totally unreasonable and undiplomatic" and would not listen to his explanations.
"He said he was ashamed that I was a Jew," Feiler said. "We see this as an offensive assault on our right to express our thoughts and feelings."
The other artist, Feiler's Swedish wife Gunilla Skoeld Feiler, told daily Expressen that the work was "not a glorification of the suicide bomber."
"I wanted to show how incomprehensible it is that a mother-of-two, who is a lawyer no less, can do such a thing," she said.
"When I saw her picture in the paper, I thought she looked like Snow White, that's why I gave that name to the piece," she added.
Dror Feiler was to perform a piece of music but refused to do so as long as the ambassador remained at the scene.
"Ultimately we had to escort the ambassador out of the museum," museum director Berg said, adding that he did not consider the artwork to be a provocation.
"It is rather an invitation to think about why such things happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
The museum's artistic director, Thomas Nordanstad, said he had given the artists the go-ahead to create the piece, and had "hoped it would lead to an artistic dialogue".
The artwork was repaired and was on Saturday on view to the public, despite Israel's insistence that it be disassembled.
It was not immediately known whether the incident would affect Israel's participation at the "Stockholm International Forum -- Preventing Genocide" conference, which is to take place January 26-28.
2004-01-17 17:43 | User Profile
[url]http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4152048[/url] Israel's Sweden Envoy Attacks Suicide Bomber Art Sat January 17, 2004 10:06 AM ET
By Peter Starck and Jeffrey Heller STOCKHOLM/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel defended its ambassador to Sweden on Saturday after he attacked and damaged a Stockholm art exhibit that made an avant-garde link between a Palestinian suicide bomber and Snow White.
Sweden's Foreign Ministry said ambassador Zvi Mazel had behaved improperly and that it would summon him for talks on Monday.
"He will have the opportunity to explain why he did what he did," Catherine von Heidenstam, chief of protocol at the Swedish foreign affairs ministry, told Reuters.
"Snow White and the Madness of Truth" was created by expatriate Israeli artist Dror Feiler, an activist in Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, a Stockholm-based group opposed to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The artwork consisted of a rectangular basin filled with red fluid. A boat floated on top carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat, who killed herself and 22 Israelis in an attack on a restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa in October.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the piece glorified the bomber. Israel Radio quoted Feiler -- who has also composed works of music with titles such as "Shrapnel" and "You Are Dead" -- as accusing the ambassador of vandalism.
Mazel said he saw red when he came upon the artwork on Friday while visiting an exhibition in Stockholm's Historical Museum tied to an international conference on genocide coming up in Sweden later this month.
"RIVERS OF BLOOD"
"My wife and I stood there and began to tremble," Mazel told Ynet, the Internet site of Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
"There was the terrorist, wearing perfect makeup and sailing placidly along the rivers of blood of my brothers and the families that were murdered."
He said he ripped out electrical wires attached to spotlights illuminating the exhibit and that one of fixtures fell into the basin.
In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the Swedish government had promised not to link the conference with the Middle East conflict.
"The exhibit that glorified the actions of a suicide bomber who murdered 22 people is a violation of that understanding, and if it is not removed, Israel will reconsider its participation in the conference," the ministry said.
Kristian Berg, the museum's director, said he realized the installation might have been emotional for Mazel, but that destroying art was unacceptable: "If you don't like what you see, you can leave the premises," he told SR.
2004-01-18 19:46 | User Profile
[url]http://www.jnewswire.com/news_archive/04/01/040118_art.asp[/url]
Sharon: Gov't backs envoy's attack on 'suicide' art By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff January 18, 2004 Jerusalem (jnewwire.com) - The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sunday leapt to the defense of its ambassador to Sweden, Tzvi Mazel, after the envoy damaged a Stockholm art display that glorified Palestinian "suicide" terrorism. The offensive piece of art, entitled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," consisted of a large pool of red liquid meant to depict blood on which the photograph of a female Palestinian homicide bomber floated serenely. Israel's Public Security Minister, Tzahi Hanegbi, said Mazel deserved a citation for his brave act. Offensive art On display at the Stockholm Historical Museum, artist Dror Feiler's work depicted Palestinian homicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat floating placidly in a sea of her victims' blood. In October 2003, Jaradat blew herself up at Haifa's Maxim Restaurant, slaughtering 21 Israeli Jews and Arabs. Israel's Foreign Ministry Sunday slammed the art exhibit as "atrocious", saying no argument for "artistic freedom" could justify it. The offensive piece was reportedly part of an exhibit devoted to preventing genocide. Feiler is an Israeli expatriate and member of a leftist Stockholm-based movement called "Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace." The group justifies Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Jews as a legitimate response to the Israeli "occupation." Righteous anger Israeli ambassador Tzvi Mazel told Ha'aretz at the weekend that his attempt to destroy the distasteful display was not a spontaneous act, but was planned out after he learned of the exhibit in the local press. Video cameras caught Mazel enter the area and unplug Feiler's work from its power source. A spotlight then fell into what was meant to represent a pool of Israeli blood. "My wife and I stood there and began to tremble. There was the terrorist, wearing perfect makeup and sailing placidly along the rivers of blood of my brothers and the families that were murdered," Mazel told Y-Net. European hypocrisy Swedish commentators, who typically join with their European brethren in violently attacking anything they deem offensive to another culture, roundly criticized Mazel for his attempt to defend the memory of his fallen countrymen. The traditionally anti-Semitic London-based Guardian featured a particularly hysterical article on the incident, wildly exaggerating Mazel's actions. Mazel "ripped out electrical wires, grabbed a spotlight and hurled it into a fountain, causing it to short circuit and become a potential death trap," the British daily claimed. However, according to one eyewitness who saw the security camera footage on television, Mazel was seen calmly pulling out the cords connecting the exhibit to the power supply. Standing by their man The government of Ariel Sharon came out in full support of Mazel Sunday, with at least one minister recommending the ambassador for a special citation. "If there is a situation in which an ambassador should act in an undiplomatic manner, this is it," Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said Sunday. "This is the ambassador's duty, and in [Sunday's] government meeting I will call for him to be awarded a special citation for his actions, even if they were extreme." Sharon spoke with Mazel by phone Saturday evening, telling the envoy he had the support of the entire government, Army Radio reported. "We are witnessing a rise in anti-Semitism, and will increase our efforts to fight the phenomenon," Sharon said. The Victims of Arab Terrorism organization said it plans to honor Mazel for his bravery. é 2002-2003 Jerusalem Newswire