Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update

The artist Lars Vilks has apparently received the Sappho Award from Denmark's Freedom Of Press Society, for his persistence in terms of appearing in public despite various threats against his person. He accepted the award one month to the day from a seminar about the Charlie Hebdo murders that ended with what may have been a specific attempt on Vilks' life.

I have to say, I rarely understand any of the coverage of Vilks. He's not a cartoonist. He's an artist who did a cartoon drawing (some say a series; I've only ever seen the one). He did that drawing/those drawings when there was a near-total understanding of the context that had developed and made likely a specific reception. What I don't understand is how anything he's done has worked in the context of freedom of press, as if he were a staff cartoonist whose work served a mission to inform. It pains me to my core that any artist exercising their freedom of expression has to suffer death threats, and I get slightly sick at the fact that this is extended to understood threats for those appearing in public in close proximity to that person. So I get how it's related, I get how it's awful. I also admire the courage in continuing to operate in public when there are threats against your person, even though I know many disagree. I just don't get the insistence on a positive formulation that insists this was another cartoonist at work. It wasn't.
 
posted 12:05 am PST | Permalink
 

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