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From having caused a great deal of controversy, Entropa no longer shocks anyone. The work of Czech artist David Černý, an illustration of the EU in the form of giant sculpture portraying each member state according to its national stereotype, has left European Council HQ in Brussels to be exhibited in Prague. Having provoked the wrath of the Slovaks and the Bulgarians who respectively objected to being wrapped up in Hungarian salami and depicted as Turkish style toilets, the Czechs have given Entropa a mirthful reception.
"David Černý didn't make Entropa. I did it with Jiří Paroubek (Czech Republic's Social Democrat leader) to damage our country's image," chuckled Václav Havel during the opening, referring to the fall of Paroubek's governement in the middle of the Czech Republic's six month presidency of the Union. The former president and playwright, Mladá Fronta DNES reports, explained that mystification (Černý had put it out that the work was a collective creation of 27 European artists) and provocation are part and parcel of "modern art, post-modern, and post-post-modern.
