posted on February 20, 2004 02:08:13 PMScottish Art Student Depicts Mickey Mouse Flying Toward Flaming World Trade Center
The Associated Press
Published: Feb 20, 2004
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) - A soft sculpture of Mickey Mouse flying an airplane toward flaming, crying World Trade Center towers has caused a stir at a college art exhibit.
Alan Bennie, a student of the Edinburgh College of Art, titled his work about the Sept. 11 terror attacks "Mickey's Taliban Adventures."
One museum director has called the work "dreadful." The exhibitions coordinator at the Royal Scottish Academy defended it as "social and political comment."
The work, made of stuffed fabric, shows the Disney icon flying a toy plane near the leaning towers of the World Trade Center - depicted with eyes and eyebrows. One toppled building sheds a tear while another looks toward the airborne Mickey Mouse as he approaches in a plane.
"What a bland thought process - a work depicting Disney as the root of all the troubles of the world. How original. It sounds dreadful," Julian Spalding, art critic and former director of Glasgow's museums and galleries, told Glasgow's Sunday Herald newspaper.
But Colin Greenslade, the academy's exhibitions coordinator, said Friday the piece "is about making you think."
"I don't think it's a particularly shocking piece," he said. "The twin towers have become an icon, and everyone has their own feelings about it, whether they knew people who were involved or can just remember where they were when it happened."
posted on February 20, 2004 02:46:03 PM
Adding humour to a shocking situation is how some people cope. People do it everyday, so I don't find the piece distasteful. Do you, Pat?
posted on February 20, 2004 03:32:31 PM
Yes, it's art. It appears very sad to me with toppled buildings, tears and even the failure of Mickey Mouse who was a universal symbol of the Twentieth Century. During World War 11, Mickey Mouse had represented national security and purchase of war bonds. What irony!
I don't believe that Mickey represents the "root of all the troubles of the world". He represents the tragedy of all the good in the world which has been lost..
posted on February 20, 2004 03:51:07 PM
I can see Mickey as representative of ‘American Creation’.
IMO. If mickey represented the loss of all that was good, then he would be in the building and not in the process of destroying it.
I certainly wouldn’t call it ‘fine’ but I guess it is art if enough people deem it so.
posted on February 20, 2004 04:14:03 PM
Interesting comments, thanks!
Personally, the title set me off more than the piece itself. The way I read it, even Mickey Mouse has joined the terrorist cause. When one considers that in conjunction with the rather grand things Mickey Mouse has been associated with (see Helen's post above) it rankles me that some young person who obviously knows very little of world history would gratuitously and erroneously meld the tragedy of 9/11 with that rather fine little fellow.
As for the piece itself, if it was presented in my Art class, it'd get a "C".
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." -Jonathan Swift
