Tel Aviv – A life-size model Israel’s Ariel Sharon lying comatose in a hospital bed is to be unveiled in Tel Aviv later this week in a art exhibit portraying the political inertia gripping the Jewish state.
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The eerily realistic model of the former prime minister lies on a hospital bed in an empty room at Tel Aviv’s Kishon art gallery, his eyes open, his sizeable stomach rising and falling as he breathes.
Only small groups of two or three are allowed to enter the darkened room, where the lone figure in blue pyjamas lies connected to a drip, in a creation by Israeli artist Noam Braslavsky.
“This man is not just a private person. He has huge influence over the lives of everyone that lives in this country,” Braslavsky told AFP.
As an artist, “it’s my right to come to this persona and to bring him back to the headlines,” he said.
On January 4, 2006 the burly premier suffered a massive stroke and slipped into a coma from which he has never recovered, leaving behind him a gaping political vacuum.
Sharon’s collapse came five months after he embarked on a radical new path which saw him pulling out all Jewish settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.
“In the middle of his political ‘swerve’ he spun off the road,” says Braslavsky, who lives in Berlin.
The unilateral move created a wave of optimism that the former hardliner could effect further Israeli withdrawals from occupied Palestinian territory.
Since his collapse, however, peace efforts have led nowhere. At the end of 2008, Israel launched a devastating 22-day offensive in Gaza, during which the Palestinians severed all contact.
Fresh attempts to get the sides talking, which began six weeks ago, are now deadlocked by a dispute over Israeli settlements.
“Sharon’s still breathing and beating body is an allegory for the Israeli political body — a dependent and mediated existence, self-perpetuated artificially and out of inertia, with open eyes that cannot see,” wrote Tel Aviv art curator Joshua Simon in an introduction to the exhibit.
“Through its insistence on convincing elements and details in the morbid spirit of a wax museum, the exhibit enables us to rethink the political,” he wrote.
Sick country.
What an invention of an excuse for flaunting one’s artistic mastery! What a disgusting desecration of a human being (regardless of anyone’s opinion of him)! Wonder what his family has to say and whether they can halt such vulgar display!
The Israeli art community is really sick. This is utterly tasteless and a gross violation of another person’s privacy.
Being in a coma for so long, I will bet u that he is a skeleton of himself today,, so this is not even realistic.
How is this different than seeing dead famous people at a wax museum?
this artwork reminds me of the cow feces artwork and that other artwork with the asian people cut up the middle….not my cup of tea.
everyone should worry about the gaverment subsidies these lunatic artists routinely receive and lay off the chareidim.
interesting – there is something to it
I remember when this whole thing happened his one party had a majority in the kneset (unstoppable) well…. This what’s left
Just when you think you’ve seen the ultimate in bad taste – something worse shows up!
It’s Obama’s message to Bibi, to watch his step.
I wonder how they react to a wax sculpture of the convertible limousine with a headless JFK with Jackie picking up the Presidents brains. It might be a great piece of artwork, but it really isn’t very respectful.
#’s 2 and 9 very well said..this is disgusting!
I think that this exhibit is in the worst possible taste but I guess that artists think differently than the rest of us – they call it creativity. I must admit, though, that it is quite a piece of work – artistically speaking. It is incredibly realistic – creepy.
ranana kishon has pulled the trick.get people involved in the art.i’m amazed at the emotional response to this work has caused on the bloggers here.the work itself is of a common type that has become somewhat banal in the art world.i would call it craft rather then artwork.being that as it may it seems to have caused a great storm in a small cup.
and this is paid with my tax money???