ENTROPA

Entropa, shown here in a smaller version of the original kinetic sculpture created for the Czech Republic’s EU presidency in 2009. What’s the story? Initially presented as a collaboration among artists from all the 27 EU member states, Černý developed fictional artists and created images of exaggerated national stereotypes. Denmark appears as a Lego set, Romania as a Dracula themed amusement park, France is on strike and Italy appears as a soccer field with players representing “an autoerotic system of sensational spectacle with no climax in sight”. When unveiled at the European Council, the work generated immediate controversy and became well-known as an international artistic hoax. From a deconstructionist philosophical perspective, it can be seen as something capable of capturing the dissonances and failures that undermine the totalizing and exhaustive dream of systematic belief. The missing piece on the upper left corner is a reference to the Brexit before Brexit but also gives the idea of something permanently incomplete and a political entity without defined borders. It in the way depicting my beloved Europe as continent unable to find and defend common values, and fight for core beliefs.