Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002. Helene C. Stikkel/Wiki Commons

While former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon lies comatose in a Tel Aviv hospital, his body will be on display at the city’s Kishon Art Gallery beginning Thursday.

In case you were wondering, hospital attendants haven’t carted Sharon’s body to the exhibit. The “body,” a life-size, animated sculpture replete with hospital bed, drip and blue pajamas, is the work of Israeli artist Noam Braslavsky. The installation, which “breathes” softly, depicts the lifeless pallor of the 82-year-old statesmen, who has been in a vegetative state since suffering a stroke in 2006.

Call it what you want: quirky; morbid; blasphemous. But Braslavsky assigns the exhibit a dual purpose, both emotional and political. “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.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Kishon curator Joshua Simon said the sculpture, which has open eyes, is “an allegory for the Israeli political body — a dependent and mediated existence, self-perpetuated artificially and out of the inertia, with open eyes that cannot see.”

That may sound like curator gobbledygook, but the political message has stirred up controversy. According to Raanan Gissin, a former Sharon spokesperson, the former prime minister should be remembered as a vigorous political figure.

“I don’t want to remember Sharon as he is now — and this is clearly a vivid reflection of how he is now — but how he was,” Gissin told Reuters. “He was always active, always doing something for better or for worse, but a man in action, a man who’s constantly active, constantly leading.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount