I tried to go see the exhibit containing “Snow White and The Madness of Truth” todayFirst, read this morning’s post.. At the door, I was told, “it is monday,” and denied entry. Silly me.

Just now, while turning on the lights in my laundry room, an idea for a compromise occurred, one which would allow Israel, Sweden and the curator to save face:

Make the installation piece interactive. Put switches on the three standing spotlights, and let individual visitors decide, for a few minutes at a time, whether individual spotlights should be on or off. If you want to participate, you take one of those little numbered papers that comes out of a machine and wait your turn.

The ambassador, retroactively, is made the first participant in this interactive piece. He chose off, on the assumption that it glorifies suicide bombers. Other visitors might disagree on the message, but still feel that the work is in bad taste, and hence has no place “in the spotlight,” as it were. Yet others might think just the opposite — that the work is a condemnation of suicide bombings, and deserves to be seen, or that the woman suicide bomber does command some understanding for her actions, or that it is anti-Israel and hence worth promoting. Whatever your perspective, you get to command one of the three switches for a little while.

The beauty is, you will probably never quite get your way. I might turn my switch off, but you might simultaneously turn yours on. The result: A work of art at the mercy of an ongoing debate. What it means if the artwork remains mostly dark, or mostly lit, can become the grist for further analysis.

So now, if it’s no longer vandalism, would you turn the light on or off?

Israel’s ambassador to Sweden triggered a major diplomatic row between the two countries this weekend when he disrupted an installation piece depicting a Palestian suicide bomber at the opening of a Stockholm exhibit related to an international conference on preventing genocide. PM Sharon defended his ambassador’s behavior and demanded the work be removed, while the Swedish government quite simply said it does not (and cannot) censor art. Though the spat is far from over, both sides are trying to come to an understanding so that Israel’s participation in the conference is not jeopardized.

The facts: The piece is called “Snow White and The Madness of Truth”. The artists are a couple — she Swedish, he born an Israeli Jew, now also Swedish. On the blood-red water of a museum courtyard pool floats a small raft upon which is affixed the image of a female Palestinian suicide bomber responsible for the deaths of 19 21 Israeli civilians last October. A text accompanies the piece, as well as a Bach cantata called “My heart swims in blood““My heart swims in blood since in God’s holy eyes, the multitude of my sins makes me a monster.”. Standing spotlights around the pool throw light on the installation piece, as it still gets dark early in Stockholm. It is one of these the ambassador threw into the pool, short-circuiting the installation — or which accidentally fell in after the ambassador unplugged the lights, depending on the nationality of the paper you read.

Foto: Sven Nackstrand/AFP

The spin: Of course it is sometimes right to deface art… if the function of a piece is to incite violence in addition to being art. Propaganda art is the primary example that comes to mind. While I would not recommend that you try it, I would certainly applaud if you defaced Nazi propaganda posters during WWIII would not applaud if you defaced them in a museum today, however, because their power to incite violence has been superceded by their value as historical evidence.

But doesn’t defacing art also fall under the noble rubric of non-violent protest? If you find a piece supportive of a greatly offensive cause, should you not be able to justify damaging it as part of the greater political conversation the artwork is clearly part of, if you also are willing to face the legal consequences of your actions? Here I hesitate, already. Say yes, and you are on the verge of justifying the destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan that so terribly offended the Taliban. But there is a further reason to defend offensive art from defacement: You may be dead wrong about what it means.

Case in point is the furore caused by Chris Ofili’s Madonna adorned with dung, exhibited at the 1999 Sensation exhibit in NYC. A convent of Catholics took offense at the painting, and mayor Giuliani jumped on the bandwagon looking for votes. To westerners, items covered in shit are desecrated, but in the African tradition channeled by Ofili, dung consecrates.

This explanation did not mollify the outraged. Eventually, the fact that the art could be perceived as offensive by people unaware of its context was reason enough for some to justify its removal. Then there was the suspicion that Ofili was playing some kind of clever trick, using ambiguous symbolism to disguise an offensive aim with an innocuous cover story.

How analogous is the Snow White installation piece? Ofili did not aim to be ambiguous — his Madonna belonged to a long series of similarly themed pieces whose dung symbolism was well documented. Snow White seems more intentionally ambiguous, or else not successful in imparting a clear message, if that was the intent. Whose blood is in the pool? Israelis’? Palestinians’? Both? Does it matter when deciding whether the floating image of the suicide bomber is being consecrated, or desecrated, or both?

The name Snow White hints at innocence, but the lyrics of the cantata hint at guilt. The attached text intersperces similarly conflicting writing. The artists have told Ha’aretz the work condemns terrorism, but to whom do they ascribe the label terrorist? Is this artwork a case where we should suspect the ambiguous symbolism for the subversive message it might carry — specifically, suicide bombings are sometimes justifiable?

The other option is that the message is unintentially muddy because the art is bad. The offense, then, would come from the fact that the art could reasonably be interpreted as a justification for suicide bombings by those already leaning towards that conclusion. The intent may have been a plea for reconciliation, but the effect is one of justifying terrorism.

There is an additional consideration: As a mental exercise, try replacing the image of the suicide bomber with one of Mohammad AttaSwedes can replace her image with that of Mijailo Mijailovich, and then put themselves in the place of Anna Lindh’s husband for a similar effect.
Update 19.05 CET: Somebody beat me to the punch:
 
. Imagine him sailing smilingly atop a pool of the blood he’s shed. It offends, at a gut level, because we are not used to seeing his image (or that of Hitler, or a Swastika) depicted without a clear condemnatory context. If you are a family member of one of the victims, you may well feel outrage at having your pain be appropriated for the production of art that on a gut level appears to trivialize evil. In other words, it is in poor taste.

So: Does Snow White offend on account of its message? The Israeli Ambassador probably thought so. Is it in poor taste? I think so. Does this justify defacing it? Not by a long shot. But I do think the curator is a fool for letting such clumsy work through the door.

A free rag on the subway to work this morning carried the news in a few grafs: Ingrid Thulin, who so memorably played Marianne, the melancholy daughter-in-law to Victor Sjöström’s Professor Isak Borg in Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries), had died. Despite the distractions of an overful rush-hour carriage, this piece of news triggered an introspective mood. That movie was a revelation to me. I try to watch it at least once a year (and recently more often, now that I understand what they are actually saying to each other).

Ingrid Thulin is perhaps less well known than the rest of the Swedish “rätt pack”, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Liv Ullmann (and also Ingrid Bergman and Pernilla August — who am I forgetting?), but she was certainly their equal in every way. She may well have been Sweden’s best-ever actress.

Her death underscores the inevitable passing of a great era in Swedish film. Ingmar Bergman hasn’t left us yet; the wiley ol’ bastard is likely to outlive us all. But one day the greatest living director will die, so I sometimes entertain myself by asking who would replace him by default? Woody Allen for his early stuff? My only problem is that I forget who is alive and who dead, so I fear I am missing somebody obvious.

Then there is the separate question of who is the greatest working director today: I don’t feel either Bergman or Allen have had the lock on this category for a while. For this latter category, I nominate Ridley Scott, though with an audience (of one) award to Lukas Moodysson.

To be or not to be
(or what is Sweden’s suicide rate, once and for all?)
 
Here is a loose translation of what I just wrote in Swedish: I couldn’t hack it as Sweden’s best weblog, so I’ve decided to aim for notoriety at any cost — hence my attempt at Sweden’s worst weblog, which should be easily achieved by blogging in Swedish.
 
I have no idea why you would want to read this uncorrected text. My Swedish teacher only reads it because I pay her; and I can’t afford to pay you all to read it.
 
For my first post in Swedish I thought I’d find out if Swedes really like to commit suicide. It’s a persistent meme, as Jonas recently showed on his blog. Last year I blogged a WHO report that covered suicide, and used it to compare US/Canada and western European suicide levels: They were about the same, 10.5 per 100,000 people per year for western Europe and 10.6 per 100k for the US/Canada. What amazed me then is that suicide rates are much higher than murder rates, with the difference most evident in Europe.
 
This time, I’ve gone looking for individual country statistics. Once again, a closer look at statistics gives me numbers that don’t add up. In this case, the individual components seem to be higher than the regional aggregates I used last year. The US, for example, has a suicide rate of 13.9/100k, and Canada’s is 15.0/100k. Possibly, this discrepancy is due to estimates and projections being made for the regional numbers.
 
In any case, how does Sweden perform compared to the rest of the world?
 
[See list]
 
You can check out more countries on p.186 of the PDF. Clearly, Sweden’s suicide rate is nothing special. Catholic countries tend to have lower suicide rates, eastern European countries tend to have higher ones.
 
If one needs ammunition against the likes of Rush Limbaugh however, here is a useful factoid: Swedish males commit suicide at a lower rate than American males (22.9 vs 23.2). It’s the Swedish women who shuffle off this mortal coil faster than American women (9.2 vs 5.3), proving that even in suicide Sweden is staunchly egalitarian.Eftersom det blev för svart att bli Sveriges bäste webblogg, kom jag på att skriver Sveriges sämsta webblogg. Detta projekt bör vara jätte lätt för mig, om jag skriver på svenska.

Jag vet inte varför du skulle vilja läsa den här texten. Min lärare har inte ännu korrigerat det. Hon läser det bara eftersom jag betala henne; jag orkar inte betala allt som kommer hit till min webblogg.

För den här första inläggen på svenska hade jag idéen att undersöka om det är sant att Svenskar tycker om att begå självmord. Det verkar vara en strong kliché om Sverige, som Jonas på Blind Höna har redan vist. Jag kom ihåg en rapport från den World Health Organization kallad World Report on Violence and Health. Jag hade redan bloggad det förre aret, och jag hade jämfört självmordtal mellan USA/Canada och väst Europa. Nivåerna var nästan samma: 10.5 per 100,000 personer begett självmord varje ar i väst Europa, och 10.6 i USA/Canada. Det är intressant att i väst Europa självmordtal är mycket högre än det mordtal. Det hade jag inte förmodat.

Men nu har jag hittad informationen om individuella länder [PDF]. Vad är lite konstigt är att de här data komponenter inte stämmer överens med de regionala summorna. Till exempel, USA här hade ett självmordtal av 13.9/100k och Canada 15.0/100k. Kanske de regionale numren[PDF] var uppskattningar (numren av individuella länder var för specifika år). Kanske de var fel. Men Jämfört resten av värld, hur presterar Sverige i den här listan?

Sverige: 15.9 (1996)

USA: 13.9 (1998)

Argentina: 8.7 (1996)

Australien: 17.9 (1998)

Belarus: 41.5 (1999)

Belgien: 24.0 (1995)

Cuba: 23.0 (1997)

Danmark: 18.4 (1996)

Finland: 28.4 (1998)

Frankrike: 20.0 (1998)

Tyskland: 14.3 (1999)

Holland: 11.0 (1999)

Ungern: 36.1 (1999)

Norge: 14.6 (1997)

Ryskland: 43.1 (1998)

Storbritannien: 9.8 (1999)

Spanien 8.7 (1998)

Schweiz: 22.5 (1996)

Du kan kolla själv flera länder på PDFen, sidan 186. Vi kan konkludera att Sveriges självmordtal är ingenting speciellt. Katolska länder verkar ha färre självmördar, och öst europeiska länder flera.

Om man behöver ammunition mot argument från Rush Limbaugh et al, kan man använda detta faktum: Färre Svenska män begår självmord än Amerikanska män (22.9 vs 23.2). Det är Svenska kvinnor som begår mer självmord än Amerikanska kvinnor (9.2 vs 5.3), som bevisa att även med självmord är Svenskaren jämlikhetsträvande. (Jonas, kanske “radikalfeministen” Amy på West Wing vet mer än vi förmådde:-)

(Om du har en plötslig längtan om att korrigera något här ovan, det får du.)

The Volokh Conspiracy has a spirited defence going of Swiss creativity, for the most part successful, marred only by its dependence on dubious sources, namely the Swiss.

There seems to be a widely parroted perception that the Swiss have the most Nobel Prize winners on a per capita basis. But divide absolute totals for nationalities with CIA population estimates and you get 0.30 Swiss Nobel prize winners per 100,000 Swiss, whereas the Swedish manage 0.34 per 100,000 Swedes.

A breakdown of the categories shows the Swiss are fatally weak in Nobels for literature, trailing Sweden by 5. Perhaps writing in Swedish sometimes has its advantages.

(A note on my methodology: Data for nationalities seems to be up to date for 2002; neither the Swedes nor the Swiss won anything in 2003. And if it’s on the internet, it must be true, right?)