Opinion: A museum fuels hatred of America in a foreign land
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. By Marc A. Thiessen Marc A. Thiessen Columnist focusing on foreign and domestic policy Bio Follow Columnist April 30 at 3:32 PM BILBAO, Spain — The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a masterpiece of American architecture, a swirl of curved configurations crafted out of sheets of titanium by Frank Gehry. But step inside the stunning structure, and the celebration of America is over.
The first one I see, right by the door, is titled “THE END OF THE U.S.A.” It reads: “ALL YOU RICH F----- SEE THE BEGINNING OF THE END AND TAKE WHAT YOU CAN WHILE YOU CAN. YOU IMAGINE THAT YOU WILL GET AWAY, BUT YOU’VE S--- IN YOUR OWN BED AND NOW YOU’RE THE ONE TO SLEEP IN IT. WHY SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE STAY BEHIND AND SMELL YOUR STINKING COWARDICE? HERE’S A MESSAGE TO YOU — SPACE TRAVEL IS UNCERTAIN AND ANY REFUGE OF YOURS CAN BE BLOWN OFF THE MAP. THERE’S NO OTHER PLACE FOR YOU TO GO.
In another gallery, Holzer has created paintings out of redacted U.S. government documents relating to interrogation of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some canvasses show intelligence documents with the black redaction lines in gold and silver leaf, while others are blowups of handwritten statements by detainees alleging all kinds of horrific abuses at the hands of Americans.
Not all her works are so offensive. In one exhibit, a four-sided vertical LED sign swings from the ceiling with scrolling first-person accounts from those detained and tortured by the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. But even here, the juxtaposition of this exhibit with the redacted military documents seems designed to send a subtle message that there is really no moral distinction between Assad and America -- both are torture regimes.
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