Activism and Art: The growing trend of destroying art to create awareness
Join this
conversation
Download the Swell app and instantly add your voice.
They're trying to sue the people that actually destroy the works of art in cleaning that up and the cost of cleaning that up. But the additional security will most likely come on to the guests of the museum. Now, I fully understand that in a lot of cases, when you are in an activist role, that you really need to draw attention and that you sometimes need to do extraordinary things to bring attention to a cause that you do not believe is getting enough attention
Um, I also think that in making the decision to destroy art, it it has too many offshoots for the conversation individually and collectively, to go down many other paths than to really engage with saving the planet. I keep I want to put that in quotes later point. What is art? What is the value of it? Why do we think this is important? And how is art maintained and how can it be fixed? And is this art irreversibly destroyed?
Mark Lesser
@marklesserart · 0:51
Yes. Thanks for this. As an artist, first of all, it pisses me off because it's not Monet's fault we have a climate problem. I mean, I don't see the cause and effect, I don't see the behavioral chain here of how this is going to bring change to climate. Like, who's your audience that you're trying to impact. If you want more money to be spent on this, how is this going to bring debt?
Binati Sheth
@Binati_Sheth · 5:00
I think it is obscene because I would have loved to see all of these art pieces before they were destroyed and defaced. But what choice do they have? They've tried everything else. Nothing else is working. So I think this is something else that they are trying. Hoping things change when you, me, maybe deep down even them, they know nothing's going to change. We are all very happy. No, happy is the wrong word
Rosie De
@ghettogypsy75 · 2:42
It could easily be highlighted in some artistic way and shown. So I think that would be a better statement, a better way to get people on board. Because I don't know why someone threw oil on paintings. I don't know what their point was. And that's sad, because they must have had a point. That's a pretty big risk. But I have to always investigate after the fact. And I feel like that seems like the consensus. Nobody really understands up front
That's about all I got to say about it. Because there are a lot of things that are done out like this that are meant for nothing but attention. Even people are killed for attention, to get somebody's attention so they can be heard, although they hear you from jail cell, bud. Just keep our fingers around the brushes and our hands off the art. Do your own art and then destroy it. All right? That was plain and simple
So I think with attacking these pieces of art, it really does a lot to damage exactly what the art world was meant to do. It used to come a time that the art piece was meant to be this act of protest, this act of satire and parody, and the idea of taking it and using it as a voice against the government
And in many ways, that's what's going on with art and protest is that we're all so individualistic now, the idea of these shared issues don't exist. How is this possibly affecting me? How is this inconveniencing me? And when you see it going to the point where no one can make an art piece anymore, to speak to that, the idea to speak to that is by destroying the art piece, I feel like we're in trouble
And I think maybe it's I don't want to believe that this is going to like the continued trajectory, but at the same time, when was the last time we had a significant piece of art that was created that communicated internationally in a way that made us feel good or bad? And instead it's about these destructive things. I don't know. Again, maybe I'm making connections that don't actually apply, but yeah
It's essentially not shared the way it used to be. I just personally think when we reach a point to where we're designated art as protest art, that was the first moment in time, I think, where we're starting to see that protesting isn't working. Because I think people have either seemingly forgot what it means to protest and what it means to create art and how these things are. They're one and the same in many ways
Like, the whole idea a collective, and thinking about the collective in addition to self is a foreign thing now, right? We've got instant gratification the next dopamine hit. So we don't take time to self reflect or try to seek understanding of what does that piece of art really mean? What is that protest really about apart from self, but from the perspective of others, let alone how it affects us collectively, let alone then how do we communicate ourselves? Right?
But I think that's just kind of what it is like when you can get to the point now where anybody can just do something, and it's in the vein of the first person to do more. We're much more supportive of trends than we are to actual results. It's the effect, for lack of a better term, when Trump ran for office, suddenly we saw a spike in different celebrities entertaining being president
Mark Lesser
@marklesserart · 0:53
You. It's really a ridiculous contradiction. Because if you're protesting because you want to protect society from climate change, well, if you're destroying art, you're also taking apart dismantling a piece of society. So actually they're contributing to our society falling apart. Like you mentioned earlier about burning books or something like that. You're actually contributing to our own demise rather than doing something to move us forward. It's ridiculous premise, and it does seem more like it's
It really is. It's like the few seconds or minutes of fame are somehow more important. Or it's just virtue signaling I can't make sense of
Join this
conversation
Download the Swell app and instantly add your voice.