by A. Elizabeth Brown

Created on: May 01, 2008   Last Updated: May 02, 2008

My artistic meanderings to date have been largely an exploration of various medium marketed by Crayola, and generally include "washable" somewhere on the packaging. As such, I freely admit I'm no expert art critic and I have no viable opinion as to whether art is more about the artist, the work itself or the beholder. In my own home, a few fine art reproductions and signed, numbered prints mingle with fingerpaintings dating from my children's toddler years, and that's the way I like it. One of them still has the original cookie-stains.

There...you see my credentials.

All of which make me uniquely suitable to express bafflement at the latest Modern Art rendering foisted upon the public via an unspeakable display in an Israeli Museum. In the article I read, an unspecified number of Berliners temporarily reside within a display, going about their everyday lives (such as they may). What sets this apart from just another community theater episode of "Big Brother" is the fact that the compelling, artistic component of this project is the purposeful infestation of head lice upon each of the willing subjects.

I pause in disbelief.

Deep breath...okay...let's think here a moment - to what purpose might this unhygienic spectacle be directed? Or is it "art" for art's sake?

Milana Gitzin-Adiram, chief curator of the Museum of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv and host to this stellar project, was quoted as saying, "Art is no longer just a painting on the wall. Art is life, life is art."

What a load of crap. Truly opens up a wealth of heretofore happily unexplored venues, the mere thoughts of which I shudder. The day some idiot molds mucous scrapings into a DaVinci bust is the day I toss myself in the turtle pond behind my house and hold my own head down.

To complicate matters, controversy exists as to whether the display constitutes an intentional symbolic insult to Jews, who, during the Nazi Regime in Germany, were referred to as "parasites". As I find it implausible that anyone might truthfully consider icky head-bugs intrinsically worthy of artistic display outside of a Health Department brochure, the intentions of the artists responsible are reasonably suspect.

Of course, both the artists and the museum deny any deliberate correlation. It's all about the humanity, I suppose...those too destitute and tragic to afford a jar of mayonnaise and a nit comb. A poignant rendering of social inequalities and societal unconcern.

While I'm sure millions will be flocking to visit this notable exhibit, as for me, I think I'll stick with "Daddy, Doggie, House and Tree". At least that's something I can understand.

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