Snow White and The Madness of Truth
Encyclopedia
Snow White and The Madness of Truth was an item of installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...

 by Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i-born composer and musician Dror Feiler
Dror Feiler
Dror Elimelech Feiler is a Swedish-Israeli musician, artist and leftist activist. He has been living in Stockholm, Sweden since 1973. He is married to the artist Gunilla Sköld-Feiler...

, and his Swedish wife, artist Gunilla Sköld-Feiler
Gunilla Sköld-Feiler
Gunilla Sköld-Feiler , born in Norrköping, Sweden, is a Swedish artist. She is married to fellow artist Dror Feiler. In January 2004 she made international headlines with the artwork Snow White and The Madness of Truth.- External links :...

. Feiler and Sköld-Feiler created the visuals and the music for the artwork together, which was installed in the Museum of National Antiquities
Swedish Museum of National Antiquities
Swedish Museum of National Antiquities is a museum located in Stockholm, Sweden that covers Swedish cultural history and art from the Stone Age to the 16th century...

 (Historiska muséet) in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

.

The installation consisted of a long pool of water coloured blood red, upon which floated a small white boat named "Snövit" ("Snow White") carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat
Hanadi Jaradat
Hanadi Tayseer Abdul Malek Jaradat , a Palestinian suicide bomber from Jenin, blew herself up on Saturday, October 4, 2003 in an attack on Maxim's restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Twenty-one people were killed and 51 injured. Among the dead were four Israeli children and three...

, a Palestinian suicide bomber, which were accompanied by text written on the nearby walls, and the sound of Bach's
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut
Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut
Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. In Wolfgang Schmieder's catalogue of Bach's works, it is BWV 199...

(Cantata 199). That piece begins with the words, "My heart swims in blood / because the brood of my sins / in God's holy eyes / makes me into a monster". According to the artists, the installation was made to "call attention to how weak people left alone can be capable of horrible things".

The artwork became the centre of some controversy when the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel
Zvi Mazel
Zvi Mazel is an Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden from 2002 to 2004, after serving as ambassador in Egypt from 1996 to 2001 and, later, Romania...

, claimed it was antisemitic in nature. Some argued that critics failed to understand the artists' central message about tolerance
Toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...

, freedom of thought
Freedom of thought
Freedom of thought is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints....

, and diversity
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

. Reactions to the piece have been compared to reactions to Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....

's song "John Walker
John Walker Lindh
John Phillip Walker Lindh is a United States citizen who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He is now serving a 20-year prison sentence in connection with his participation in Afghanistan's Taliban army...

's blues", which appeared on his 2002 album "Jerusalem".

As scheduled, the artwork was removed from display on February 8, 2004. In 2011 the Feilers created a new installation called "Once upon a time in the middle of winter" based on the events.

Controversy

In early 2004 the artwork briefly came to the attention of the international media after it was vandalized
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 on January 16 by Zvi Mazel
Zvi Mazel
Zvi Mazel is an Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden from 2002 to 2004, after serving as ambassador in Egypt from 1996 to 2001 and, later, Romania...

, the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i ambassador to Sweden. Mazel disconnected the electricity powering the installation and tipped one of its lights into the water, causing a short circuit
Short circuit
A short circuit in an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path, often where essentially no electrical impedance is encountered....

. When Mazel was asked to leave he refused and had to be escorted out by museum security.http://www.dn.se/sthlm/ambassador-forstorde-konst-1.236382 The entire event was filmed by a television news crew.

Mazel later gave contradicting statements about the event. To the Swedish media, he said it was done in the heat of the moment, but to Israeli media he said it was premeditated and that he had planned it even before he saw the artwork. On January 20, Feiler appeared in Nyhetsmorgon
Nyhetsmorgon
Nyhetsmorgon is a Swedish morning news and talk show that airs every morning on TV4. It is similar to The Today Show. Nyhetsmorgon started airing in 1992....

 on Swedish TV4 and explained that the white boat symbolized truth; and if an individual believed that their views were the absolute embodiment of truth, the end result could well be the pool of blood depicted in the installation.

According to Sköld-Feiler, the name Snow White
Snow White
"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...

 was chosen simply because in her portrait, Hanadi Jaradat resembled Snow White with her black hair, pale skin and red lips.

The installation was a part of the Making Differences exhibition at the Museum of National Antiquities
Swedish Museum of National Antiquities
Swedish Museum of National Antiquities is a museum located in Stockholm, Sweden that covers Swedish cultural history and art from the Stone Age to the 16th century...

. On January 18, 2004, Thomas Nordanstad, who is responsible for the exhibition, was attacked by an unidentified man who tried to push Nordanstad down a staircase. Nordanstad had also recently received over 400 e-mails containing various threats. Both Kristian Berg, head of the museum, and the artists also received many threats. The following Sunday, a museum guard had to remove a group of people who were throwing various objects into the water.

After the attack on Nordanstad the number of visitors to the museum increased to approximately 1,400 per day, up from roughly the same number per week.

According to Swedish Dagens Nyheter
Dagens Nyheter
is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...

 journalist Henrik Brors there may have been hidden motives behind Zvi Mazel's act. He speculated that it may have been done in an effort to discredit Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 by depicting them as antisemites, and to have the EU back down from its peace efforts in the Middle East. In the analysis in Dagens Nyheter
Dagens Nyheter
is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...

 Brors further speculated that Mazel may have done it to give Israel an excuse for not attending the international anti-genocide conference Stockholm International Forum that was to be held in Stockholm January 26-28.

Diplomatic relations between Israel and Sweden suffered further when Israel Army Radio
Israel Army Radio
Army Radio or Galei Tzahal known in Israel by its acronym Galatz , is a nationwide Israeli radio network operated by the Israel Defense Forces....

 incorrectly reported that a "pro Israeli" film was removed from the exhibition at the request of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. Both Thomas Nordanstad and Kristian Berg demonstrated that this allegation was false, as the documentary in question, "Map" by award-winning Israeli film maker Amit Goren, remained as part of the exhibition. It is believed that the erroneous rumour probably started when the display was moved from Tensta konsthall
Tensta Konsthall
Tensta Konsthall is a centre for contemporary art on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in 1998, the art centre has exhibited works by international artists which include: Wolfgang Tillmans, Julian Opie, On Kawara, Shirin Neshat, Susan Hiller, Tracey Moffat, Kutlug Ataman, Mark Wallinger...

 due to some internal problems. During the whole time, another work by Goren, the film 119 Bullets + Three was also on display. The display of Goren's works is sponsored by the Israeli embassy, and the cultural attache, Lizzie Oved Scheja, stated that the exhibit had their absolute support.

The Young Christian Democrats, the youth organisation of the Swedish Christian Democratic party
Christian Democrats (Sweden)
The Christian Democrats ) is a political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1964 but did not enter parliament until 1985 in an electoral cooperation with the Centre Party and on the Christian Democrats' own accord in 1991. The leader since April 3, 2004 is Göran Hägglund. He succeeded Alf...

, reported the artwork to the police in hope that action could be taken pursuant to Sweden's strict laws against hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....

. Mazel himself asked in an interview "If we Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 say that this offends us, why can't a government remove it?".

Stockholms Lokaltrafik (SL
SL
- Geography :* Saint Lucia, a Caribbean island* Sri Lanka, in South Asia* Sierra Leone, in West Africa- Computing :* SL , a class of computational complexity* .sl, the country code top-level domain for Sierra Leone...

) decided to remove advertising of the Making Differences exhibit that used a picture of Hanadi Jaradat, those posters were a part of C. M. V. Hausswolff's artwork "God made me do it" and had nothing to do with Feiler/Sköld installation "Snow White and the Madness of Truth."

An e-mail protest organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...

 has been directed at Prime Minister Göran Persson
Göran Persson
Hans Göran Persson was the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Conceding defeat in the September 2006 general election, he announced that he would resign as party leader, and Mona Sahlin was elected to succeed him as...

's office. By the morning of January 27 2004, 13,603 emails had been received.

Kristian Berg stated that "I did not hear anyone who saw the work say that it was an anti-Semitic installation, against the Jewish people or against the Israeli people, I therefore think that this work was politically hijacked - the interpretation that Ambassador Mazel gave it was very narrow and very political."

External links

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