Sheer Art Attack

today for my mittagspause i pedalled down turmstrasse to the Galerie Nord in order to check out their controversial ZoG-Surrend exhibition of work by danish political provocateurs surrend.org, which reopened this month. It had originally been closed in response to vague stone throwing threats by from even more vague 'muslim groups' six local youths who objected to the appearance of the ka'aba in one of their political posters. surrend artists are expert at making "fun of the world’s powerful men and crazy ideological conflicts" and in this collection direct their graphic attentions toward bush, putin, israel, iran, burma, and the npd (one poster suggests giving a german state to the sinti as reparations). i hadn't been in the gallery for thirty seconds and was still getting my bearings when a woman suddenly begin screaming at the top of her lungs, delivering her judgement that it was a "filthy nazi exhibition". a staff member approached her to confer and another helpfully held out an informative brochure but it soon became obvious that, not only had she had missed the point of the exhibition, but she was also a bit unbalanced. eventually - to a chorus of raised eyebrows - she was escorted from the building, and stood outside bellowing her criticisms for the benefit of passersby...i suppose satiric irony is not everyone's forté...