OVO

Those who destroy or harm the artwork of others are sometimes called iconoclasts. The term is also used to describe those who destroy or harm religious artwork. The great majority of religious iconoclasts are, themselves, religious. The sort of iconoclasts I am interested in are trying to make something new happen, not replace one old idea with another old idea.

Rindy Sam kissed a solid-white painting by Cy Twombly, leaving lipstick traces that will never come off. Laszlo Toth rained down hammer blows on Michelangelo’s statue Pieta. Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi jumped on My Bed, an art installation by Tracey Emin. Chai and Xi tried to urinate on Duchamp’s sculpture The Fountain but failed. Pierre Pinoncelli, however, both urinated on The Fountain and knocked chips off of it with a hammer. Mary Richardson took a butcher’s knife to the painting Venus in the Mirror by Rokeby Valasquez (this act seems to have been done for a ‘cause,’ but I’ll give it an honorable mention). Wilhelmus de Rijk took a knife to Night Watch by Rembrandt. William Lloyd destroyed the Portland Vase. DaVinci’s The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist was subject to a shotgun blast, Danae by Rembrandt got a splash of sulfuric acid, and Michelangelo’s David also got the hammer. Tony Shafrazi spray-painted “KILL LIES ALL” onto Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. The Little Mermaid is subject to ongoing acts of iconoclasm. And oh my, there are more, many more, iconoclasts…

Update April 2011: Art Crimes.

Update August 2011: Susan Burns [1][2]

Update January 2012: Carmen Tisch