Lars Vilks: Mohammad as a Roundabout Dog

At Mahound's Paradise we will try to respond to each Muslim attack against journalists or cartoonists by featuring the works in question. Let's give them something to look at. You know, just because...

The above is by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks--the probable main target of the first Copenhagen attack. It was originally one of a set of three pen and ink drawings titled Mohammad as a Roundabout Dog.

(Roundabout Dogs were a form of street installation art that started in Sweden in the summer of 2006 and spread to a few other countries. Homemade dog sculptures made of wood or other materials would suddenly appear on roundabouts.)

The series was originally accepted for a 2007 exhibition of "The Dog in Art" in the small town of Tallerud. However, the organizers withdrew the drawings at the last minute due to "security concerns". The drawings were then rejected at another venue. However, they were then subsequently published in a number of Swedish Newspapers.

At the time Vilks was condemned by the usual Muslim interest groups, clerics and governments. Since then he has been the subject of numerous threats and attack attempts. A Pennsylvania women and Muslim convert Colleen LaRose is currently serving ten years in jail for attempting to recruit conspirators to murder Vilks.

Of course that didn't stop him. And he added a few more "Mohammad as a dog" pictures to his portfolio. Here's a particularly fun recent one:

Here's an account by a witness to the first shooting at the Copenhagen free-speech debate, as told to Danish TV2 News:

She said that she and the Swedish cartoonist hid in the cold store of the cultural centre. 

"I was in a cold room and kept hold of Lars Vilks' hand. He was very cool." 

"We stood and told each other bad jokes."

And here's the artist himself in 2010:

Vilks survived. But tragically two other men, as of this writing were killed, film director Finn Noergaard and Jewish security guard Dan Uzan.