News piece on the the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris getting caught in the the strife ignited by Thomas Hirschhorn's solo show "Swiss-Swiss Democracy." The promotional poster used an image from Abu Ghraib torture footage, superimposed with insignias of three conservative cantons, the Swiss cross, and the slogan "I Democracy!" In the show's play an actor pretended to urinate on a sculpture of right-wing leader Christoph Blocher and to vomit into a ballot box. As a result, the country's senate slashed the budget for Pro Helvetia, the federal agency that promotes Swiss culture internationally, and the cultural scene rose up in arms.
The promotional poster used an image from Abu Ghraib torture footage, superimposed with insignias of three conservative cantons, the Swiss cross, and the slogan "I Democracy!" Equally controversial, in the play an actor pretends to urinate on a sculpture of Blocher and to vomit into a ballot box. After tabloid papers falsely reported the simulacra as actual onstage urinating and vomiting, the mainstream press took up the controversy. Soon after that, Christian Democratic legislator Peter Bieri proposed an $850,000 cut from Pro Helvetia's $29 million budget. While the lower house of the Swiss government sided with Pro Helvetia, at the federal level the vote went against the agency by a 25-18 margin.
Hirschhorn says the dispute stunned him. "I understand that the tabloids sensationalize this exhibit," he explains. "But I can't believe that the politicians reacted in such an illogical, unprofessional way." But Bieri says Pro Helvetia has no one to blame but itself: "If they had just admitted they should have been more careful, then I would not have insisted on the budget cut. Instead, they started publicly comparing us to East German autocrats."
