this ai weiwei （艾未未）piece seemed particularly relevant to a recent conversation. he drops a han dynasty (206 bc - 220 ad) urn, providing three images of the cringe-inducing fall. never mind that i find the images aesthetically compelling in themselves, the visuals are secondary. he has destroyed art for the sake of art. meet the chinese duchamp.
extremely relevant, and incredibly beautiful, and irrevocably shocking. i love how unapologetic he is in his interview (and even the fact that he left the interviewer with a kiss), because that is what you must be if you are going to destroy art for the sake of art. that is the kind of statement you have to make if you are going to create art through a momentary action and assume that anyone will care enough to watch it happen. i can't help but shudder a bit, though - the destruction of another's art to create your own not only feels tabboo, but seems a bit selfish. desecration, of a sort. i mentioned this piece in conversation with a professor today, and he stated that painting on top of or crushing a former art work makes such a strong statement in that art often acts as an immortalizing factor for the artist, making its destruction almost as literal as it is metaphorical. what happens, then, when a contemporary artist fighting against a communist system shatters a somewhat mundane, ubiquitous han dynasty urn (because, let's face it, the asian museums are drowning in them) - is he fighting against the tradition that the urn represents (in aesthetics, in ubiquity, in the artist's conformation to aesthetical ubiquity) or is he simply appealing to the shock value of destroying a work of art?
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995)
1 comment:
extremely relevant, and incredibly beautiful, and irrevocably shocking. i love how unapologetic he is in his interview (and even the fact that he left the interviewer with a kiss), because that is what you must be if you are going to destroy art for the sake of art. that is the kind of statement you have to make if you are going to create art through a momentary action and assume that anyone will care enough to watch it happen.
i can't help but shudder a bit, though - the destruction of another's art to create your own not only feels tabboo, but seems a bit selfish. desecration, of a sort. i mentioned this piece in conversation with a professor today, and he stated that painting on top of or crushing a former art work makes such a strong statement in that art often acts as an immortalizing factor for the artist, making its destruction almost as literal as it is metaphorical.
what happens, then, when a contemporary artist fighting against a communist system shatters a somewhat mundane, ubiquitous han dynasty urn (because, let's face it, the asian museums are drowning in them) - is he fighting against the tradition that the urn represents (in aesthetics, in ubiquity, in the artist's conformation to aesthetical ubiquity) or is he simply appealing to the shock value of destroying a work of art?
Post a Comment