How to Deface Art Without Going to Jail

Art Under Attack Exhibition at Tate Britain, from now to 5 January 2014



An exhibition surveying vandalism in Britain is itself under attack in the British press (here) and on the blogosphere (see below). The irritation is palpable and probably understandable. Yet surely iconoclasts have operated in other places than Britain, most notably in Afghanistan when the Talibans blew up the Bamyan statues:







When does iconoclasm become art rather than vandalism? I think we can thank Tate Britain for providing us with the answer: you don't go to jail if you are the owner of the art you deface.



The Chapman brothers, Jake and Dinos, show you how. First they got a valuable series of rare 80 Goya etchings, the famous "Disasters of War" that was printed directly from the Master's plates in 1937. Their series was in mint condition. They thought it over for two years, trying to figure how best to shock the bourgeois, and came up with the solution: as Dinos put it, they "changed all the visible victims' heads to clowns' heads and puppies' heads." Here is one result, judge for yourself:





   

Goya's original anti-war message is lost. Of course, that's the point, right?



More recently, as shown in the Tate exhibition, they bought 19th century portraits and reworked them, like this:







The face is destroyed - poor guy, he commissioned a portrait figuring this was his claim on immortality...poof, up in smoke!



And there's nothing you or anyone can do to stop the Chapman brothers: they are the owners, they can do what they please. 



If you don't own the art, you're in deep trouble as Polish artist Wlodzimierz Umaniec learned when he defaced a £5 million Rothko with a silly bit of writing:











His signature and then " a potential piece of yellowism". Why did he do that? Because he "admired" Rothko and felt he was following in the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp who famoursly turned a urinal into a work of art by writing on it. The Judge didn't buy this and jailed him for 2 years. Restoration in fact will take 20 months and cost more than £200,000.



So, if you want to leave your artistic mark by vandalizing another piece of art, the best way is to work on art you've acquired. Not an option open to a poor artist! To do it, you have to be rich like the Chapmans who can afford to buy Goya etchings...Nice guys, here they are:





 

What's your opinion?



Related articles

Tate Britain: 'hypocritical' show celebrates art vandalism(theweek.co.uk)



The Great Destroyer: Iconoclasm(kennedylive.wordpress.com)



The ultimate iconoclasm(asiahacks.com)