Now on display at Alperts in Seekonk with other high school art, the student's work is causing some controversy.

10:41 PM EST on Tuesday, February 8, 2005

BY MARK REYNOLDS
Journal Staff Writer

Jeffrey Eden devised his award-winning project less than 30 minutes after his high school art teacher asked him to express a thought or two in a three-dimensional way.

Journal photo / Kris Craig

The award-winning artwork by high school student Jeffrey Eden compares President Bush's war policies with Adolf Hitler's pillage of Europe.

So, in the wake of last year's polarizing election and the war in Iraq, the 17-year-old built an abstract scene comparing President Bush's war policies with Adolf Hitler's pillage of Europe.

The student's diorama-like assemblage juxtaposes Hitler quotes with statements by Mr. Bush, Nazi swastikas with American flags, desert-colored toy soldiers with olive plastic figures. And so on.

Eden said he's trying to point out certain similarities between the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the German blitzkrieg -- without actually equating Hitler to President Bush.

In this, the success of his project is debatable.

Nonetheless, it has earned the Charlestown student a silver key at the Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards.

It has also tested the contest's commitment to an overriding principle: that students should be encouraged to express their own thoughts through art.

The piece, titled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself," triggered a complaint soon after it was displayed with other award-winning entries at Alperts Furniture Showplace in Seekonk last week.

"It's offensive to me," said Paul Lewis, a 34-year-old North Providence man.

Lewis asked Alperts to remove Eden's piece and phoned area newspapers as well as Channel 10 and Channel 6.

He said he sees zero relationship between the policies of President Bush and Hitler.

"It's a stretch," he said.

Lewis said the piece poorly conveys what Eden told The Journal he was trying to convey because it leaves too much to interpretation. Someone might think the artist believes the president is as evil as Hitler, he said.

"I believe he should have been a lot more clear in putting those two things together," Lewis said.

Alperts refused to remove the exhibit, but the store did attach a disclaimer.

The views of the artist do not represent the store, it said.

"We don't censor art," said the store's owner, Hershel Alpert. "We're not in the business of censoring art."

Eden hopes to study art after he graduates from Chariho Regional High School next year.

Eden said that although he supports U.S. soldiers, he believes the invasion of Iraq was unjustified.

The recent election in Iraq has not changed his views.

"At the time we invaded we did not have the justification nor the intelligence to take him [Saddam Hussein] out the way we did," he said.

Figures of President Bush and Hitler, drawn on Popsicle sticks, are at the focal point of Eden's work. Each is addressing his own army of plastic soldiers.

On a backdrop, Eden has pasted statements of Hitler. He has penned a few of his own sentiments, too.

He hopes people will read them.

"Hitler's own justification was his own hatred," said one slogan.

"Treatment of the prisoners was unspeakable [concentration camps]," said another.

To the right of President Bush, Eden's handwriting said "No justification" and "Saddam had no affiliation with the Taliban and there are no weapons of mass destruction."

Eden said the written messages are as important as the visual ones.

He thinks they show that the work is comparing Hitler and President Bush -- not equating them.

"I felt I was clear about what I was trying to get across," he said. "I believe those who misconstrued the artwork didn't take the time to really read into it."

His teacher, Lynn Norton, believed he got his point across. She gave him an A.