From Virtual Terrorism Comes Unobjectionable Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm is a subcategory of conceptual performance art. The symbolic destruction or damage of an object is distinguished from its cousin, vandalism, because of the symbolic intent. Vandalism is defacing or attacking an object chosen at random. Iconoclasm, from the Greek eikon, meaning “symbol,” sees the target chosen for what it represents, and the manner of defacement or attack can likewise be laden with symbolism.

Most instances of iconoclasm against art have nothing to do with an artistic act. The many headless statues on the façade of Ely Cathedral, in England, are one such example—Protestants objected to the representation of saints, and to Catholicism broadly, and while they couldn’t attack the amorphous religion itself, they could smash the heads off the statues. An ideological example of iconoclasm as terrorism came in the 2004 dynamiting of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban. This fundamentalist Islamic group considered it unacceptable that world-famous giant statues of buddhas should be located in their territory and so blew them up, an act globally condemned. There are other iconoclastic acts for which we might sympathize with the cause that prompted the attack, even if we condemn the attack itself. In 1914, a suffragette slashed Velazquez’ Rokeby Venus with a knife in order to get attention and be quoted in the press about her cause—women’s right to vote. She chose the painting because she didn’t like the way men stared at her (the naked Venus), but what she was really after was a moment of notoriety to promote her righteous cause. She engaged in a damaging, damnable act in the name of a righteous cause. The core problem was that she attacked an artistic masterpiece that, in itself, had done nothing “wrong” nor was it even about the subject that upset her. It was simply something famous that she knew the media would cover if it were attacked. 

Earlier this year, in October 2022, a parallel action took place at the National Gallery in London. Two women threw tomato soup at two Van Gogh paintings, then glued their hands to the wall, in order to protest fossil fuel use in the UK. Thankfully, the works they attacked were covered in protective glass and were undamaged—it’s not clear whether the attackers knew that or if it was just a lucky coincidence that they chose targets that were not going to be damaged by their action. It is far less objectionable if they did know, though it is still a sad act of desperation that activists rightly upset by fossil fuels should target an artwork that shows a sunflower. Art is chosen for attack in order to get attention. Liberal thinkers can support the cause for which attention is sought, while condemning the damage (or risk to it) of an artwork.

But what if the act of destruction is the artwork? There are examples of when it was successful and unobjectionable, as when Robert Rauschenberg, with Willem de Kooning’s blessing, erased a drawing by de Kooning—then one of the most celebrated artists in the world—as a performance called Erased De Kooning (1953). Or when Marcel Duchamp doodled on a poster of Mona Lisa (note: not on the original painting) for L.H.O.O.Q. (1920). Or when an artist arranges for the destruction of their own work, as in Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York (1960), a kinetic wooden sculpture designed to destroy itself by fire when set up in the garden behind MoMA in March 1960.

Climax (2021) is an example of iconoclasm as art in the Duchampian tradition of attacking a reproduction of an iconic object, which retains the symbolism but removes all the objectionable elements. The approach of the group of eight female artists is actually a combination of Duchamp’s L. H. O. O. Q. and Tinguely’s Homage to New York. They built a replica of Aljaž’s Tower, a metal structure atop Triglav, Slovenia’s tallest mountain, and blew it up on 21 May 2021.

Foreigners need to understand that, for many Slovenes, Aljaž’s Tower is an icon that represents the nation. The saying goes that you’re not Slovenian unless you’ve summited Triglav, and therefore visited Aljaž’s Tower. The original tower itself was designed by priest, composer and mountaineer, Jakob Aljaž, and was erected in 1895 and was proclaimed a site of national cultural importance in 1999. Destroying it has, in the eyes of many Slovenes, a similar shock and resonance to blowing up the parliament building or burning an antique Slovenian flag. It may be seen as an attack on the idea of Slovenia itself, through attacking an object that has come to symbolize Slovenia.

But the Climax project did not attack the original tower. The artists built a replica and applied for—and received—elaborate bureaucratic permissions to blow it up within the confines of a quarry. The action was filmed. It was all planned, controlled—the detonation was subcontracted to a professional firm, as was the location, in a safe zone within a quarry. No one was hurt. No one lost money in the project (the artists covered expenses themselves). No actual iconic object was destroyed—just a replica of one. The artist statement calls this a “virtual terrorist action that calls into question the current state of the social system.” In this case, the “virtual terrorists” were women, which, as the artist statement notes, “is for a woman in reality an uncharacteristic gesture, as a woman is often seen as a victim rather than an attacker of the system of society.”

That, in itself, is intriguing as an artistic action. But it grows only more so when we learn that the artists saved all the documentation relating to the project, including a vituperative, highly hostile and misogynistic correspondence with a staff member at the quarry—so inappropriate that the director of the quarry felt compelled to issue them a formal apology. The work of art, then, extends beyond the building and destroying. It is an entire thought process charted from start to finish, one that revealed (though the artists could not have predicted it would) the very objectionable attitude towards women that they hoped to highlight through their action. The artist statement continues, “More and more women are being re-domesticated, that is performing unpaid care work…a strong artistic gesture is necessary which addresses the issue of women.”

This is unobjectionable iconoclasm as art, yet since it was designed as a “virtual terrorist act,” its goal is to provoke. That it should document the reactions to the provocation takes this action to a new level. It was the misogynistic response that provided the nails in the coffin and made the action an explosive artistic success.

-Dr Noah Charney
Author, The Herstory of Art: Great Women in the Story of Art