"Animated Ariel Sharon coma sculpture on show in Israel"

A life-size sculpture of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is due to be unveiled at a gallery in Tel Aviv.
The installation, by Israeli artist Noam Braslavsky, portrays Mr Sharon lying in a hospital bed in the coma he has been in since 2006.
Curators said the installation, which appears to breathe, was an allegory for the "inertia of Israeli politics".
Mr Sharon was one of Israel's most influential leaders. He has never recovered from a massive stroke.
The 82-year-old remains in hospital in Tel Aviv, having never regained consciousness after suffering the stroke four years ago.
The animated sculpture will be on display to the public in a darkened room at the Kishon art gallery from Thursday.
It shows Mr Sharon lying in a bed wearing pyjamas and connected to a drip.
His eyes are open and his chest rises and falls as he audibly "breathes" in and out.
Mr Braslavsky said the installation "activated the viewer to take part in an emotional process".
"I choose to take Sharon because Sharon is kind of an open nerve in Israeli society, which activated all the spectrum of emotional feelings to what being an Israeli is," he told Reuters news agency.
He defended the controversial artwork by saying Mr Sharon was not "just a private person" and still had a huge influence over everyone in Israel.
"It's my right to come to this persona and to bring him back to the headlines," he told the Associated Press.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11572585 (complete with video of the thing)

In classic British understatement, the article states "The sculpture has proved controversial."
Personally, stuff like this is why I just don't get modern art.

… an allegory for the "inertia of Israeli politics".

Really? Well, a point of view I suppose.

"Sharon's still breathing and beating body is an allegory for the Israeli political body - a dependent and mediated existence, self-perpetuated artificially and out of inertia, with open eyes that cannot see," Said the artist Noam Braslavsky.

A video recording of the same subject would have similar allegorical meanings, but it would not have the same tangibility, a choice was made in this regard. The type of wax used is also interesting because it's not the traditional sulptural wax, it's casting wax, it deteriorates. This is a temporary piece of work, that is quite important to it's meaning I believe.

What is interesting was Sharon's former assistant's view on it.. He wished to remember Sharon as the active man he was, not the comatose person he is now

I'm sure Sharon wouldn't like this if he would see it.

Well at least Sharon's a better politician in a coma than alive...the world's a much safer for refugees now