You may have heard about the chap who has a smashing time in an art gallery, deliberately dropping a vase by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, supposedly in protest that the Florida based museum didn't show enough local work. Part of the art exhibition shows an image of Ai Weiwei dropping an ancient Chinese vase and breaking it, so the artist decided "to join him in an act of performance protest." Not thinking through that the vase he was smashing was a $1 million dollar piece of art, and that he'd get criminal charges as a result.
More on the story here with a great "ho hum, I just smashed that" video of the incident happening, which makes the artist look like a toddler waiting to be told off, (as seen in above picture from the BBC) and more quotes from the artist here. It reminded me a lot of a chap we had in our art gallery once...
What really caught my eye was this amazing snippet of statement from the museum:
More on the story here with a great "ho hum, I just smashed that" video of the incident happening, which makes the artist look like a toddler waiting to be told off, (as seen in above picture from the BBC) and more quotes from the artist here. It reminded me a lot of a chap we had in our art gallery once...
What really caught my eye was this amazing snippet of statement from the museum:
"As an art museum dedicated to celebrating modern and contemporary artists from within our community and around the world, we have the highest respect for freedom of expression. But this destructive act is vandalism and disrespectful to another artist and his work, to Pérez Art Museum Miami, and to our community."
I love whoever crafted that release to perfectly balance creative expression vs. being a little s*ht.
That quote came from here and is a masterly example of politely dissing someone in posh language.
Mr Ai joined in a similar way by explaining that when he was photographed smashing vases, it was "a little different".
That quote came from here and is a masterly example of politely dissing someone in posh language.
Mr Ai joined in a similar way by explaining that when he was photographed smashing vases, it was "a little different".
"The work I work on [does] not belong to a museum or other people's property. I never tried to destroy a museum piece - those vases belong to me. He can drop whatever he likes to drop, but not other people's property."
There is undoubtedly a big debate behind this with the old 'what is art' debate, and was the artist right to express himself illegally and at the cost of another's creative output being destroyed (I'm a big fan of good street art, so the illegal/eyesore/property debate interests me) But put all that aside, and just admire the structuring of those two responses to his act, which boil down beautifully between the lines to say "twit".
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