21 abril 2003

CULTURAS IN VITRO
A Hostile takeover: Who in their right mind would damage a work of art? When we hear of the harm inflicted upon a Leonardo cartoon at the National Gallery in 1987, or a bullet hole through a stack of Warhol Marilyns at The Factory in 1964, we put it down to the act of a deranged outsider. [...]
On the other hand, in Paradise Square, Baghdad, tearing down a giant bronze Saddam is seen as moving, heroic and symbolic. Bad art about bad people deserves all the abuse it gets, we might argue, but where do the lines of acceptability lie when an artist wilfully wrecks another artist's work?
Eradicating Symbols of a Past Regime: Why it was so important to see Saddam's statues come crashing down.
What is it about a dead and really poor statue - a boring one indeed - that rouses such personal antipathy? And why did we who were not there stay so gripped throughout the whole business?