The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Santiago Sierra. He is a Spanish performance artist, whatever that is. In Germany last weekend he used an old Jewish Synagogue to re-create a Holocaust era gas chamber. 200 people signed up to do this.

What are people thinking these days? No harm was done, but some jewish activists are upset. Its just so nuts what Sierra did, and other for the publicity I don't see the point. He didn't even go in his self-created gas chamber.

For pulling one of the most insane stunts of 2006, Santiago Sierra is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Hat tip- Ann Althouse
Open Post- Bright & Early, Don Surber, Jo's Cafe, Freedom Watch, Adam's Blog, Basil's Blog, Third World County, Is it Just me?, Right Wing Nation, Liberal Wrong Wing,

An artist invited Germans to come and be symbolically gased with car exhaust fumes in a former synagogue. Jewish leaders and media commentators say he is belittling the Holocaust and insulting its victims. But hundreds of people have lined up for the experience.

Santiago Sierra, a Spanish performance artist, pledged on Monday to hold talks with Jewish community leaders outraged by his project to give people a sense of the Holocaust by pumping lethal car exhaust fumes into a former synagogue and letting visitors enter one by one with a breathing apparatus.

Sierra, known internationally for his controversial work, led hoses from the exhaust pipes of six parked cars into the building in the town of Pulheim-Stommeln near Cologne to create lethal levels of carbon monoxide there.

Around 200 visitors who lined up for the first gassing session on Sunday had to sign a declaration that they were aware of the risks before being allowed in wearing a breathing apparatus and accompanied by a fireman.

They were allowed to spend a maximum of five minutes in the synagogue, which is no longer used as a place of worship and only survived the Nazi era intact because it was sold to a farmer and used as a storage hall. "The smell of the exhaust may cling to clothing," visitors were warned.

The Nazis used gas chambers to murder many of the 6 million Jews they killed.

Sierra, 39, who lives in Mexico, was not present at the start and could not be reached for comment. He said in a statement distributed outside the synagogue that he was trying to counter the "trivialization of our memory of the Holocaust."