Italian police shut down art installation, "The Mosque" at Venice Biennale

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Randy Kennedy
A prayer service inside the mosque installation created by the artist Christoph Büchel on May 8. Credit Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
ITALY---The police in Venice closed an art installation in the form of a functioning mosque on Friday morning.... The Icelandic Art Center, which commissioned the installation, said in a statement that it believed the aims of the mosque had been realized, in a sense, even if the installation was not allowed to remain open, as originally planned, over the course of the Biennale through November. [link]