Vandalism As Social Protest: Reconfigurations of Space and Subjectivity
Language: English and Spanish
Bruno Latour saw the Taliban’s 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas as not only related to the statues’ importance had for the “West” as part of “world heritage” or that for them they were “mere stones,” but also because they were pointing to the lack of concern for Afghan people during a famine. Their dying and suffering were invisible in the media and governmental registers of Western nations, it was as if they didn't exist: Until the Taliban blew up the Buddhas. In the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder, waves of attacks and the toppling of monuments crisscrossed the globe. How might various eruptions of defacement and destruction be conceived or compared?
The breaking or defacement of “images can have political, economic, religious and cultural implications”, where they serve as sites visibly marking a struggle. Michael Taussig (1999) asks, "what happens when something precious is despoiled?"
Images - statues, paintings, and other symbolic objects – can attract attention and become lightning rods for undercurrents of discontent. Destroying art, or even destruction as art expands the conversation beyond issues of defacement. What can be said about shifts in subjectivity and social space while witnessing visual events and their effects, whether it is soup flying at a Van Gogh painting or the burning of the Mona Lisa in a movie?