Via Prague

Last Tuesday afternoon, my last class canceled, I wandered over to the Globe, a cafe and bookstore in Prague's New Town that caters to an English and American clientele. I'd noticed on my last visit that the cafe would have the Obama inauguration broadcast in full on its big screen and I looked forward to tuning in over a pint of Pilsner and a heaping plate of nachos.
But it was not to be. The owner, an generally affable American guy, received me curtly.
'Sorry we're all booked,' he said. It was still a good two hours before the start (the inauguration was to start at five o'clock Czech time), and at the moment the tables were generally still empty.
'But can't I just sit for a while?' He waved me off.
'I've got to be tough about this,' he insisted, as though playing back a pre-rehearsed speech. 'If I let you sit, or anybody sit, then when the people who've reserved seats show up -- and this has been advertised the past two weeks -- there could be problems. I don't need it. Sorry.'
I left, feeling the chagrin of a regular customer but nevertheless understanding.
Where else to go? Well, there was another American cafe near Wenceslas Square, Jama, which had also advertised an inauguration party. But something told me that place was probably booked too.
Ah, wait! Of course, the Czech Inn. This establishment, a hostel run by a British expat, happens to be right in my own neighborhood of Vrsovice, It also happens to have a bar with a big-screen TV that usually is played without sound because the girl bartenders would rather hear music than listen to Manchester United and their loutish fans. But something told me I should give the place a try.
The manager, as it turned out, was not only cool with the idea, he even offered to -- turn up the volume!
'Shall we have it in sound?' he asked affably.
(Amen, brother) 'Sure, why not?' is what I really said.
Of course by then it was three, and I had two hours to wait. The manager suggested a beer to help cool this long interval, and I grudgingly accepted. By the time the inauguration started in earnest, I was well into my fourth, and feeling it, but the excitement was such that it didn't matter. Gradually the cafe filled up with travelers, some of whom were just returning from an afternoon of sightseeing and others perhaps just waking up from reveling in the center's bars and discos the night (and morning) before.
It wasn't a big crowd, hardly; about twenty people, but just enough to give the necessary touch of 'moment.' Laptops were set aside, mp3 players temporarily turned off; travelers in faded jeans, laden with backpacks, they forgot their itinerary, brushed off fatigue, ordered pints and tuned in with bright, alert faces. It should be noted the majority were Americans, or at least seemed to be.
Not that it mattered. I've watched other presidential inaugurations; I remember watching Clinton's inauguration while a 21-year-old seaman recruit at the former Naval Facility in Ferndale, California, and Bush's address while covering the local Republicans' reaction while at the Times-Standard. But this time, as it was for everyone else, there was something special, and I was glad to be in this small cafe in Prague, surrounded by a few fellow stranded countrymen. (Just think: In twenty years, people will ask you, so where were you?)
Anyway, when it wrapped up, I'll confess I was a bit unsteady from the excitement, the moment of history, and my sixth pint of Bohemian milk. Unsteady? I was horsed, trollied, three sheets. I was on a certain planet where visions of Obama swam and fluttered, and people chanted and frolicked, and purple ponies nay-ed and kicked up their happy little heels.
I probably should have tuned in more closely to Obama's admonition for a 'new era of responsibility.' I should have just went home, called it a night. Instead, I tottered and swayed, like a senile hippopotamus, over the ice-covered cobblestone street (a bad idea: one slip on the ice can mean one broken arm one broken head)
Still, I decided, for Obama, that one more was in order. So I settled on Rozjety Zaby, which in Czech means, 'The Squashed Frog.'
The 'Frog,' as the locals call it, was comparatively quiet, a rather dour Tuesday crowd. Most of the faces were familiar. On the computer, YouTube was up (we use it as a jukebox) and a friend was playing hip hop videos. Rather boorishly (in retrospect), I greeted everyone with 'Obama' jibberish and hoots and nonsense, and even asked (and was granted permission) to bring up the inauguration, which was already on YouTube. As Obama's speech started, I ordered a beer and prepared to share my 'moment' with everyone. The response was noticeably lukewarm.
'James, all right, all right. We don't care, OK?'
'James, who in America cares about the Czech president? Don't you see?'
Beerfully, I became defensive. Beerfully, aggressively, I proclaimed Obama's greatness. I uttered beer-soaked oaths and curses. I called one guy, a good friend, a Communist. It became less clear and more offensive after that. I vaguely recall several shouting matches. A friend, this one British, happened to come in. 'James! Calm down, man!' Another friend, this one Czech, reminded me of a promise I'd made him give that if I ever got too belligerent to knock me out. He didn't, but the promise was repeated.
Somehow, eventually, I got out and wandered down to -- incredibly -- another bar, where I had another beer and had a few other minor mishaps before finally going home.
The next day, sober, chastened, I returned to the Frog.
The friend who I had accused of Communist tendencies was there. "Don't talk to me right now, OK?' he said as I offered a hand.
Others came in. They'd heard about it. Others at the bar remarked on it.
'Byl jsem novy planet,' I said to some who offered curious ears. In Czech that means: I was on a new planet.'
Later, a girl who'd received some of the benefits of my planetary excursions came in. I offered an apology.
'It was just the beer and too much excitement,' I said. 'Like when your team wins the championship.'
She nodded.
'But James, be careful. Obama-- I understand. But he is only a man. Uvidime.' In Czech, that means: 'We'll see,' a phrase Czechs often use.
'Uvidime,' I said.

'

Posted by James Tressler at 05:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Politics operate by consensus; art does not. How else can one respond to the recent controversy surrounding David Cerny's new work, 'Entropa,' unveiled in Brussels last week? Cerny, a Czech artist known for his, shall we say, 'dégagé' approach, was commissioned by the Czech government to mark the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union. Instead of working with artists from all 27 member states, as he was commissioned to do, Cerny instead completed the work on his own, with perhaps a couple of assistants, and later admitted fabricating the names of other artists who were supposed to have cooperated on the work.
The result: Entropa, a multi-piece sculpture that romps from playfully ironic to downright tasteless. France is represented as a country 'On Strike;' Bulgaria as a toilet; Romania a vampire theme park. England, known for its isolationist policies, is omitted from the exhibit altogether, or rather, exhibited as a 'missing piece.' To be fair, Cerny doesn't spare his home country: the Czech piece simply displays various 'anti-EU' comments by Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
Czech officials, who unveiled the work in Brussels, were evidently side-swiped, both by the work itself and public outcry. Seems the theme of the Czech presidency was 'Europe without Borders,' and initial press releases sought to connect this theme with art, which itself 'knows no boundaries.' However, Czech officials quickly apologized to the various offended countries, and were quick to distance themselves from the work.
'Entropa is a work of art; nothing more, nothing less,' said Alexander Vondra, deputy minister for EU affairs. ' The project depicts mainly stereotypes and clichés as barriers to integration and cooperation in Europe. By realising that these barriers are there, we can start removing them. Realisation of prejudice is a sine-qua-non condition for its elimination ...This piece of art has never been meant as the Czech Presidency vision of the EU or its Member States, and no matter how shocking the latest discovery might be, it does not change anything in this regard: this is not how the Czech Government or Presidency views the EU or any Member State.'
The artist, Cerny, told The London Times he was inspired by Monty Python in creating the work and meant no harm.
"I am seriously very pro-European,” Cerny was reported as saying. “It would be a great pity if Europe would not be able to take this as a bit of satire and irony. If we are strong as Europe it should be OK for one nation to make fun of other nations.”
At any rate, Cerny's work, and the controversy it provoked, is worthy of a second look, especially for those across the Atlantic who might not have heard about it. It reminds me a little bit of the outcry in Humboldt County a few years ago when a local artist exhibited a work, Frank Bowden's 'The Tactics of Tyrants are Always Transparent.' Bowden's work eventually made national headlines after the exhibit was pulled. Cerny's work, Entropa, in noteworthy contrast, will continue to be displayed.
What's interesting, in both cases, are the questions raised. In this writer's opinion, both works are somewhat prosaic and obvious rather than shocking; that is, they merely repeat what everyone has already said, and said, and said.
Still, what is the function of art? Isn't it to, as the writer Truman Capote observed, to achieve 'not reality, but it's proper reflection?' During the filming of 'In Cold Blood,' Capote had advised director Richard Brooks on only two artistic points. First, Capote insisted the film be done in black and white, and second, that all the original settings in Kansas be used. Both, Capote felt, were necessary in achieving the proper reflection of the horrid murder of the Clutter family that night in 1959, and its resulting aftermath.
One could make a similar case in painting with, say, the Abstract Expressionists. Didn't Jackson Pollack's jazzy swirl of paint, in 'Autumn Rhythm' for example, properly reflect individual feelings of anxiety, of vertigo, of existentialist ennui, evoked by the Atomic Age?
But these are merely selective examples. Getting back to Entropa. How does, say, a portrayal of Germany as a series of highways resembling a swastika, or Slovakia in the shape of a Hungarian sausage, properly reflect a 'Europe without Barriers,' or, in common hip currency, 'The New Europe?' We could, and maybe should, accept Cerny's explanation, although it sounds suspiciously like a back-pedalling, disingenuously PC appeal. After all, this is the same artist that a few years back painted a former Soviet Union tank bright pink. If the guy just likes to provoke comment, to have a bit of a piss, why not come right out and say it?
OK, to a certain extent, he has, confessing that he expected the work to be 'treated as a joke,' as he was reported as saying in Cesky noviny. Cerny also admitted he and his assistants fabricated the names of artists from the other 27 countries named in the exhibit, defending that action by stating that 'grotesque mystification and fabrication is a hallmark of Czech culture, and creating false identities is one of the strategies of contemporary art.'
Cerny's position undoubtedly resonates with other artists, particularly those of the 'Found Art,' Duschamp school, although skeptics might wonder if explanations and justifications for are also to be included as 'Found Art.'
Among politicians, the work understandably infuriates, especially in the current political climate. Czech officials, who have to a certain extent always felt somewhat inferior, saddled as it were, with, a certain national guilt over the legacy of Communism and a collective xenophobia, have looked forward to the Czech EU presidency as a chance to show the country has finally caught up and is on par with Western Europe. In this light, Entropa would seem to thrust the Czechs back into their old, provincialist ways. Is this, one could imagine a Czech offical or member of the local intelligentsia asking, how we show our alliance with Europe? My God, Bulgaria a toilet!
I would suggest that such questions are better left in those quarters. It is for the Vondras, or Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, to wax eloquent on such things as 'spirit of new cooperation,' and other sweet-smelling platitudes. It is the task of Cerny and other artists to do the work they are commissioned to do.
But what exactly is this work?
In this case, Cerny was commissioned to do a work commemorating the Czech presidency, a rather vague assignment. What, in these terms, was he supposed to create? A mechanical Svejk, mug of beer in hand, rotating on a glass map of the Continent? He could have followed the example of the outgoing French presidency. The French went with a design of a giant balloon displaying the French national colors. Why not a design showing 27 hands clasped together? Too cliche, too kindergarten, I know. In this case, you'll admit that the commission was perhaps too vague, too open-ended. In old Europe, the Renaissance, artists' commissions were strict and supervised. In other words, the Pope, for example, went to Michaelangelo and said: Make a sculpture. Of me. In brass. But I don't work in brass, might Michaelangelo complain. You do now, replied His Holiness.
Of course, the days of patrons and artists are way over, and contemporary artists, at least most of them, would refuse to work under such conditions. Free expression aside, in a way, it's a pity. Such strict conditions, one could argue, are good for discipline: they force the artist's art. Is it possible that commissioned art, however, could spur a revitalization in contemporary art, an art that -- let's face it -- has become dull and self-absorbed? Imagine, for example, in a small cities in California -- Eureka, for instance -- where artists must submit designs, and the winner is commissioned to enhance the city's waterfront with a giant sculpure? You could argue that such conditions limit the artist, but look at cities in Europe today! Would tourists seriously visit a place like Florence if it did not have the statue of David? Maybe, but you'll allow that something would be missing.
I see I've drifted afield. Perhaps I, and others, have been too hard on Entropa. It has, after all, provoked this long-winded discussion. It would be worthwhile, I believe, to see a rebirth, a sort of New Renaissance, in which artists and the state worked together, both in the name of art and the state. The challenge, in this regard, would be to define the exact relationship, if that is possible, between the artist and the state, and the function of art for that matter. But that discussion is perhaps long overdue.

Posted by James Tressler at 02:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

... From the BBC. As everyone knows, the Czechs officially took over the EU presidency this month, and already -- controversy, embarrassment! Seems the Czech government commissioned David Cerny, a controversial Czech artist, to design a commemorative work to display in Brussells. The result ... read on. See pictures by typing 'Czech Zentropa' into Google images.

Czech EU art stokes controversy

Entropa depicts the EU's 27 member states according to crude stereotypes
A new art installation going on display at the European Council building in Brussels has angered EU members with its lampoons of national stereotypes.

Entropa portrays Bulgaria as a toilet, Romania as a Dracula theme-park and France as a country on strike.

The Czech Republic, which holds the EU presidency, thought it had commissioned work from 27 European artists.

But it turned out to have been entirely completed by Czech artist David Cerny and two associates.

The eight-tonne mosaic is held together by snap-out plastic parts similar to those used in modelling kits.

The Netherlands is shown as series of minarets submerged by a flood - a possible reference to the nation's simmering religious tensions.

Germany is shown as a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika, while the UK - criticised by some for being one of EU's most eurosceptic members - is absent from Europe altogether.

Raised eyebrows

The 16-square-metre (172-square-foot) work was installed at the weekend to mark the start of the six-month Czech presidency of the EU.

There has already been an angry reaction to the piece from Bulgaria, which has summoned the Czech ambassador to Sofia to explain.

The three artists responsible for Entropa were led by David Cerny who, says the BBC's Rob Cameron in Prague, is the enfant terrible of the Czech art world.

In pictures: Entropa installation

When his government commissioned him to create the installation, several eyebrows were raised, and they were not raised in vain, our correspondent adds.

Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra said he was only informed on Monday that the installation was not the work of 27 European artists, but David Cerny and two colleagues.

Mr Vondra condemned Mr Cerny and said the Czech EU presidency was considering what steps to take before Thursday's official launch.

"An agreement of the office of the government with the artist clearly stated that this will be a common work of artists from 27 EU states," he said.

"The full responsibility for violating this assignment and this promise lies with David Cerny."

Mr Cerny, who presented Entropa to his government with a brochure describing each of the artwork's 27 supposed contributors from each member state, has apologised for misleading ministers, but not for the installation itself.

"We knew the truth would come out," said Mr Cerny. "But before that we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself."

He added that Entropa "lampoons the socially activist art that balances on the verge between would-be controversial attacks on national character and undisturbing decoration of an official space".

Mr Cerny first created a splash in the early 1990s when he painted a Soviet tank, a Second World War memorial in a Prague square, bright pink.

Posted by James Tressler at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The boy Ruda had been to the Ocean View Cemetery each day since his father's death a fortnight before. It was autumn, which on the coast meant a heavy, thick-wind season. That afternoon the grass on the high hill of the cemetery, battered by winds coming from the bay, lay in flattened wet tufts.
The boy, two months shy of his eleventh birthday, was already tall, a wispy-haired boy with gelatin-green eyes. At the funeral he'd sat next to his mother, and everyone later remarked on the boy's dignity, the dignity of the sad pair together at the head of the procession. The casket had been sealed, of course; the swelling of Jack Warren's head -- his head resembled a kind of horrid melon -- had made him almost unrecognizable.
That was from the bees. According to the local reports, Warren, owner of a hardware store in Eureka, had been outside in his garden working late Saturday afternoon when he was fatally attacked by the swarm. It was later disclosed that cause of death was a massive allergic reaction to the stings. His body had been stung hundreds of times.
At the inquest following the senior Warren's death, Mr. Johnson, owner of the apiary just outside King Salmon, where the Warrens lived, stated he had no idea how the bees had escaped, and that at any rate in twenty years they'd never been known to be aggressive. Naturally everyone believed Mr. Johnson, and there was no reason not to, for he was a genuinely kind and malice-free man. But even more curious, after the death of Jack Warren, whose body was found in a field where he'd fled some fifty yards from the house, the bees themselves were found roosting quite peacefully in a nearby tree, and were later returned to the apiary by a shaken Mr. Johnson without incident.
For the first few days after the funeral, the boy Ruda's mother accompanied him to the cemetery, but after that, she let him go alone, partly because she was due back at the elementary school, and also because she felt troubled. Truth is, everyone in the community felt troubled.
The trouble was the suitcase. Every day he went to the cemetery, the boy carried with him a suitcase, a gold-colored suitcase that looked scarcely used. What was inside the case? That was no mystery. It contained: a grey pinstriped suit, a muted red tie, a white oxford shirt, and a pair of black patent leather shoes.
Not even the boy's mother could account for the suitcase, and its contents. She'd tried asking Ruda, but knew that he wouldn't answer; he could be as stubbornly reticent as his father Jack.
One morning, about a month after his father's death, Ruda made his usual trip along Highway 101 to the cemetery, suitcase in hand. He arrived just after noon at the cemetery, and only nodded when a caretaker waved familiarly at him. Arriving at his father's headstone, a handsome piece of granite lighter than the ones surrounding it, Ruda looked for a moment at the pink and red flowers by the stone, the flowers long since quailed by the driving autumnal winds. As he stood looking at the grave, the boy suddenly became aware that someone was approaching. He turned and coming up the hillside, almost as if from the far-off Pacific itself, was a man. The man appeared to be a late mourner, for he was dressed in funeral clothing; absurdly he carried a corsage, as though he had a date. As the man mounted the hillside, Ruda got a better look. He had stern, hollow features, and walked with a noticeable limp. His thick black hair blew wildly in the wind, as though pulled at each end by passing crows, and his eyes, two scratches in the moldy-pallored skin, lit up in recognition as they focused on the boy.
Ruda shivered, and by some instinct picked up the suitcase and drew it toward him.
'I believe that's for me,' said the apparition, as he came within shouting distance. Except the man didn't shout. Even over the high wind, he seemed to be speaking in the boy's head, or whispering in his ear.
'How are you, son? Quiet? Well, like father like son.' A thin, horny hand extended. 'Come on now, let's have it.'
The boy clung to the suitcase, he knew not why. Though his mind was a tangle of loose jagged wires, his heart beating wildly, the boy's thoughts vaguely focused on his father, a conversation they'd had a few months before. It was in the attic while they were up there putting in new insulation, and the boy had accidentally stumbled upon the suitcase. The father Jack had taken the boy into his arms, one of the few times he ever did.
'Someday I'll be gone,' he'd said. 'And when I'm gone someone, a man, will come looking for this. Don't say a word to him. Try not to even look at him if you can. Just give it to him. It's something that belongs to him.'
'So your father told you not to say anything, that it?' the man said, again seeming to speak to his thoughts. 'I suppose he's got a right to look after you, seein' as it's too late for him.'
Ruda again saw the hand reach for the suitcase. This time he let it go.
'Good boy.' The suitcase's gold cover shimmered in the sun. The man grinned, his teeth sharp and gnarled like rocks in a ravine. 'Ah, the clothes make the man, that's what they say! Well, I guess you could say that was true in your old man's case. Wasn't for this suit, he'd a never opened that hardware store, never woulda' been able to marry your mom and buy that nice place over yonder by the bay. Was twenty five years ago this October, your old man was down and out, after he'd got out the Army. Couldn't get a job he said, on account he couldn't present a decent appearance. Said he'd do anything for a decent pair of clothes. That's where I came in. I gave him that suit, and this here suitcase. But I said someday, one day, I'd be back to collect.'
The boy listened; the strands of the story reached him in circuitous waves. Most of it didn't reach him. He only heard the man's voice, like a pair of raven claws, scratching the autumn air.
'Well, I guess I better get going now,' the man said, patting the suitcase and indicated the carnation in his other hand with a jerky glance. 'I got a girl down the road in Laytonville says she ain't got a date for the Christmas pageant. So I got to deliver these. But just remember boy: you ever need me, for anything, you let me know.'
Ruda tried not to look as the man turned and walked back down the hill, his heavy boots occasionally clattering irreverantly over the flat gravestones, the boots slick with the wet grass; the roar of the wind from the bay, like a swarm of bees or a blast of heat from a furnace, screamed in his ears.

Posted by James Tressler at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1240)

With a hard winter setting in, and a New Year with a foot of snow here in Prague, it's not a good feeling to read in the news that Russia has cut off natural gas supplies to several European countries the past few days.
The European Union imports about 25 percent of its energy from Russia, most of that which is pumped through the former Soviet satellite the Ukraine. Some countries, like the Czech Republic, have seen their supply cut by about 10 percent. But other countries, such as Turkey, have seen virtually all of their supply cut. Romania, Macedonia, and Greece have also been affected.
The reason? Apparently it's a long-standing dispute between Russia and the Ukraine. Russia claims the Ukraine owes some $600 million in back fees, fees which the Ukraine claims it has paid. Russia also alleges that the Ukraine is 'stealing gas' and the disruptions are meant to replace that stolen quantity. Ukraine officials deny stealing the gas, and blame the lost gas on technical problems.
Anyway, the Czechs this week assumed presidency of the EU, and have already issued a joint statement with the European Commission condemning the disruptions, and demanding that full shipments be resumed.
Of course, I can well recall back at the Times-Standard writing endless stories about gas prices, and reading the work of my colleagues, the calls for the Attorney General to investigate, the theories behind the high gas prices, etc. After reading today's headlines here, I could only remember those days with a smile. At least on the North Coast, you don't depend on supplies from Russia.

Posted by James Tressler at 03:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)