Art vandalism
Copies of the diary of Anne Frank were mysteriously vandalised at a Tokyo library this week. I’m not going to speculate about the micro-motives here and whether it suggests a rise in anti-semitism. That requires more time & investigation. My interest is that it happened the same week that someone smashed a reproduction Han Dynasty vase by Chinese artist Ai We-Wei in Miami.
The act of defacing or destroying art is not new and has a long history as part of repressive regimes, such as Nazi campaigns in the 1930s against so-called ‘degenerate art’. What is slightly newer is viewing a work of art as a pseudo-celebrity, something globally recognisible, that can be the conduit to fame and notoriety not through an act of creation but an act of destruction. Rather than stalking and shooting a celebrity, finding an artwork is relatively easy and the penalties less severe.
As with the persistent thefts of various versions of Munch’s The Scream, this has consequences for galleries and museums which increasingly may be so wary of attacks that they’re forced to introduce intrusive layers of security or not display items at all.
Art would then be less about its potential meaning as a form of expression but about its cultural value as a social commodity. This has always been true to an extent but will become ever more so as astronomical sums are paid in high-profile auctions. I fear the Anne Frank may not be the last.
The act of defacing or destroying art is not new and has a long history as part of repressive regimes, such as Nazi campaigns in the 1930s against so-called ‘degenerate art’. What is slightly newer is viewing a work of art as a pseudo-celebrity, something globally recognisible, that can be the conduit to fame and notoriety not through an act of creation but an act of destruction. Rather than stalking and shooting a celebrity, finding an artwork is relatively easy and the penalties less severe.
As with the persistent thefts of various versions of Munch’s The Scream, this has consequences for galleries and museums which increasingly may be so wary of attacks that they’re forced to introduce intrusive layers of security or not display items at all.
Art would then be less about its potential meaning as a form of expression but about its cultural value as a social commodity. This has always been true to an extent but will become ever more so as astronomical sums are paid in high-profile auctions. I fear the Anne Frank may not be the last.
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