Politics and vandalism

Give Bazley’s three types of vandalism.

•    Bazley: destructive/malicious; protest or social statement; profit.

What are the three relationships between politics and vandalism, and which case illustrates each?

•    Tactic of the powerless (Rokeby Venus); contest over public memory (Cook memorials); exercise of state power (Bamiyan).

Describe the painting and the 1914 attack. Why is it ‘tactical’ in Cordess & Turcan’s terms?

•    Velázquez 1647–51; only nude; Venus, mirror, Cupid; 7 slashes, meat cleaver, day after Pankhurst’s arrest, hunger strikes.

What political contrast did Richardson create, and what does Just Stop Oil 2022 add?

•    Contrast: men look at objectified women while women can’t vote. Just Stop Oil: tomato soup on Van Gogh, National Gallery 2022; Phoebe Plummer ‘What is worth more, art or life?’

Cook memorials - Give the three attacks with places, dates and contexts (Tuia 250, Kōpū Bridge 2020/2022, St Kilda 2018).

•    Kaiti Hill Gisborne: red paint, Tuia 250. Kōpū Bridge near Thames: Oct 2022, installed 2020, built for Waitangi celebrations. St Kilda: eve of Australia Day 2018, red paint, ‘no pride’.

Use von Tunzelmann and Thompson to explain why attacking a monument is political. What is Parekōwhai’s response, and what is the Thatcher statue example?

•    Statues not neutral; monuments are pledges of allegiance; often no legal route to removal.

Parekōwhai; The English Channel 2015. art piece, responds to colonial imagery by reworking a 1776 painting of Cook, displayed in the Early Australian Art section of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. These responses suggest that what remains after destruction, and what artists make from it, can tell us as much as the original objects did.

Hamilton statue removed. Thatcher statue installed May 2022, paint Oct 2022, vandalised 3 times, CCTV no arrests.

Why is Bamiyan a regime acting rather than the powerless? Give Taliban facts (1994, 90–95%), the 2001 announcement and methods.

•Taliban formed 1994; controlled 90–95% by 2001; March 2001 announcement; tanks then dynamite; ICOMOS/UNESCO ignored; F&L ‘narcissistic self-assertion’.

Contrast Richardson and the Taliban.

•Contrast: woman with no vote and a cleaver forcing a hearing vs regime with territory using tanks and dynamite.

What four things does politics change (vandal, target, law, audience)? Give an example for each.

Vandal: organised meaning not lone individual. Target: nude, Cook, Buddhas. Law: Summary Offences s11A/Criminal Damage Act vs Hague/ICC (al-Mahdi). Audience: press, public, world.

Give three non-protest political examples: Ellis on Māori art, Pomare 1816, Moore’s Reclining Figure.

•    Ellis: cutting ‘indecent’ parts from male figures. Pomare: marae destroyed 1816. Moore: 1969–70, $18m, stolen 2005, 2.5 tons, probably scrapped. Yates: security depends on who finds sites.

State the so-what and the von Tunzelmann line.

•    Damage is a message; work damaged for what it means; history made not erased.