Snow White and The Madness of Truth (Swedish: Snövit och sanningens vansinne) was an item of installation art by Swedish, Israeli-born composer and musician Dror Feiler, and his Swedish wife, artist Gunilla Sköld-Feiler. Feiler and Sköld-Feiler created the visuals and the music for the artwork together, which was installed in the Museum of National Antiquities (Historiska muséet) in Stockholm, Sweden.
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, a Palestinian suicide bomber, which were accompanied by text written on the nearby walls, and the sound of Bach's Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (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, claimed it was antisemitic in nature. Some argued that critics failed to understand the artists' central message about tolerance, freedom of thought, and diversity. Reactions to the piece have been compared to reactions to Steve Earle's song "John Walker'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.
Read more about Snow White And The Madness Of Truth: Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words snow, white, madness and/or truth:
“Like snow having second thoughts and coming back
To be wary about this, to embellish that, as though life were a party
At which work got done.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Every white man in this country has been raised with a false sense of power.”
—Roxanne Dunbar (1938)
“This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In the labyrinth of a difficult text, we find unmarked forks in the path, detours, blind alleys, loops that deliver us back to our point of entry, and finally the monster who whispers an unintelligible truth in our ears.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)