A sculpture of the countries in the European Union that depicts Bulgaria as a giant squat toilet, Italy as a soccer field with players holding strategically placed soccer balls, and France as a country entirely on strike has been dismantled six weeks early, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports.

The sculpture, titled Entropa and done by Czech artist David Cerny, made waves when it was first unveiled in January by the Czech EU presidency. Officials from Bulgaria were particularly offended and called on the Czech government for an apology.

Cerny also admitted at the time that rather than creating the work in collaboration with 27 artists from EU member countries, he had actually done it with just a few friends.

The piece was supposed to hang in the EU headquarters in Brussels until July 1, when Sweden takes over the EU presidency, but Cerny asked for it to be taken down after the Czech government lost its power in a vote of no confidence on March 24.

The new Czech government, sworn in last Friday, issued a statement saying, "The Czech presidency preferred the option to let the installation remain in Brussels as originally planned. However, the presidency fully respects artistic freedom and therefore also the wish of the creator of the installation to remove the work."