Artist’s trickery leaves Czechs embarrassed

IRELAND has been portrayed as a furry brown set of bagpipes, Bulgaria as a Turkish squat toilet, Belgium as a box of chocolates and Luxembourg as a gold bar.

It was meant to be the Czechs’ gift to the EU for their six months’ presidency but a decision by the Czech government to commission conceptual artist David Cerny to enlist an artist from each of the 27 countries to portray their country using stereotypes or popular prejudices has backfired badly.

With several of the countries portrayed less than amused, the Czech government discovered the artist in charge of the project had tricked them.