Poland Vilifies Mickey Mouse Poster
July 17th 2010 01:17
In an audacious move to express what he terms the "horrors" of America, Italian artist Max Papeschi has concocted an image with a Mickey Mouse head on a nude female body laying in front of the swastika symbol.
The picture, which stretches up to a story high, is on display in the western Polish city of Poznan, sitting just meters from a synagogue.
Its display has sparked outrage from all corners of Poland, with Nazi satire sitting sourly on the tongues of people with an all too vivid recollection of suffering inflicted during Nazi German rule.
Norbert Napieraj, a city council member who condemns the poster, has called the expression "a form of violence against the sensitivity of many people".
Not everyone, it seems, shares the sentiment. Gallery director, Maria Czarnecka, who will be hosting the image in August, is keen to proceed with the display. She believes the poster does not "propagate Naziism", rather it explores symbols whilst being controversial, which she says, is as it "should be".
Prosecutors, to the dismay of many, have assessed the art work and have concluded it does not violate Polish laws against Nazi glorification.
The head of Poznan's Jewish community, Alicja Kobus, 64, is aghast at Papeschi's 'NaziSexyMouse' image. Having freshly returned from a Dutch synagogue (which the Nazi's had transformed into a swimming pool), Ms Kobus found it a little too much to bear.
Poland's younger citizens, however, view the image as a joke, while Dr Hank Corridor, from the Spirited Satirical Symbol Society (SSSS), says the piece should be seen as a tool of unification, not disparity.
He adds that Mickey Mouse functions here as a wonderful mammalian vessel that ridicules, not glorifies, a previously dominant and repressive regime in sexy modernist style.
The picture, which stretches up to a story high, is on display in the western Polish city of Poznan, sitting just meters from a synagogue.
Its display has sparked outrage from all corners of Poland, with Nazi satire sitting sourly on the tongues of people with an all too vivid recollection of suffering inflicted during Nazi German rule.
Norbert Napieraj, a city council member who condemns the poster, has called the expression "a form of violence against the sensitivity of many people".
Not everyone, it seems, shares the sentiment. Gallery director, Maria Czarnecka, who will be hosting the image in August, is keen to proceed with the display. She believes the poster does not "propagate Naziism", rather it explores symbols whilst being controversial, which she says, is as it "should be".
Prosecutors, to the dismay of many, have assessed the art work and have concluded it does not violate Polish laws against Nazi glorification.
The head of Poznan's Jewish community, Alicja Kobus, 64, is aghast at Papeschi's 'NaziSexyMouse' image. Having freshly returned from a Dutch synagogue (which the Nazi's had transformed into a swimming pool), Ms Kobus found it a little too much to bear.
Poland's younger citizens, however, view the image as a joke, while Dr Hank Corridor, from the Spirited Satirical Symbol Society (SSSS), says the piece should be seen as a tool of unification, not disparity.
He adds that Mickey Mouse functions here as a wonderful mammalian vessel that ridicules, not glorifies, a previously dominant and repressive regime in sexy modernist style.
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