When Does Art Become Crime?
Not a crime in the true sense today but something interesting to discuss. With artists exploring more and more extreme methods of expressing their artistic intents and making a statement, where should we draw the line between acts of art and just destruction or crime? Or should we not be constraining art at all? Let’s talk about some examples.
Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
Perhaps the most famous example of this type of art is by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. In 1995 he released a series of three black and white photographs of himself holding and then dropping and smashing a 2,000-year-old urn. He actually smashed 2 urns to create these photos because the first time the photographer missed the moment it shattered on the floor. He did purchase these two urns along with a bunch of others a few years prior so really they were his to do what he wanted with.
However, some people in the art world were outraged by this act calling it the desecration of a historically significant object and they felt that it was unethical to destroy antiquity under any circumstance. Some refused to believe that he had destroyed a real urn and insisted it must be a fake. And some saw it as an act of protest, commenting on how we don’t care about heritage, especially in the face of rapid modernization.
Weiwei explained the work by saying, “Chairman Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one.” This statement refers to the widespread destruction of antiquities during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and the instruction that in order to build a new society one must destroy the si jiu (Four Olds): old customs, habits, culture, and ideas. By dropping the urn, Ai lets go of the social and cultural structures that impart value” (Guggenheim Bilbao, 2023).
Interestingly, in February 2014, the Perez Art Museum in Florida was preparing to open an exhibit called Ai Weiwei: According to What? The exhibit featured 16 ancient Chinese urns that Weiwei had repainted in bright colours. During the set up a local artist entered the museum, picked up a bright green urn and smashed it on the floor at his feet. He said he was protesting the museum not featuring local artists, though there were many local artists on display at that time. He was promptly arrested and sentenced to 18 months probation, 100 hours of community service, and to pay $10,000 which was the value of the urn. He apologized to Weiwei saying that his problem was with the museum and not him. Weiwei, in response, condemned the act of vandalism. Huh. Is smashing an ancient artefact in protest only ok when an acclaimed artist does it? Or only ok when you own it? Idk
Guillermo Vargas’ Eres Lo Que Lees (You Are What You Read)
In another, more shocking, example of art verging into straight-up crime is this work by Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas. As part of an exhibit in 2007 at the Códice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua where he burned pieces of crack cocaine in an incense burner he tethered a stray dog named Natividad inside the exhibition space. Nearby (but out of the dog's reach) he spelled out Eres Lo Que Lees (in English You Are What You Read) in dog biscuits. For days the dog was tied up without access to food or water but constantly being taunted by the biscuits just out of reach. (I’m not going to include a photo with this one because they’re really sad.)
Obviously, this caused huge controversy with Vargas being called an animal abuser and killer as well as receiving death threats after it was rumoured that Natividad died as a result of the exhibit. Vargas refused to confirm or deny this rumour. Of the work, he said “he wanted to test the public's reaction, and insisted none of the exhibition visitors intervened to stop the animal's suffering” (Couzens, 2008). For what it’s worth the museum director said Natividad escaped after just one day and “it was untied all the time except for the three hours the exhibition lasted and it was fed regularly with dog food [Vargas] himself brought in” (Couzens, 2008).
Because we don’t know Natividad’s fate it’s really hard to make a call on this one but to me, it’s very very hard to make a case that displaying the suffering of an animal that has no idea what’s going on is the only way he could have made the same statement through his art.
Damien Hirst, Just Everything
I would be remiss to not include Damien Hirst here since he is arguably most well-known for his works that include pickled, preserved, and murdered animals. It is also worth noting that some of the animals that he uses were dead before they came to him (like most of the big ones like the shark preserved in formaldehyde and the cows cut into segments). But I want to talk about his many works featuring insects, mostly houseflies and butterflies.
In one piece titled One Thousand Years, he placed a rotting cow skull in the gallery. On the skull maggots grew and matured into flies which were promptly killed as they flew directly into a giant electric bug zapper that prevented them from leaving the enclosed area where the skull was. I know that killing flies is an everyday thing and we normally think nothing of it (me included) but breeding them specifically to kill them for an audience doesn’t sit well with me.
Additionally, he has created an exhibit for his 2012 retrospective at the Tate Modern that featured live butterflies in a work titled In and Out of Love in which it was estimated that 9,000 butterflies were killed over the 23-week exhibition. One outlet referred to this work as “butterfly Hiroshima” (Goldstein, 2017). He also creates ‘paintings’ that are just canvasses covered with thousands of dead butterflies. Over one series of 62 ‘paintings’, there were over 1,629 butterflies.
“Hirst has made mortality the great theme of his oeuvre. He deploys real cadavers in gallery settings to confront viewers with the implacable fact of death. As the market for Hirst’s work grew to astronomic heights, capped off by his $200 million Sotheby’s sale in 2008, his memento-mori works took on an increasingly ironic edge, as if to underscore that money can’t buy the one thing everyone craves: not to die” (Goldstein, 2017).
As with all art all of these examples have intent and meaning behind them. However, especially when it comes to using living things in the artistic process, I can’t help but think that if you are that creative of a thinker you could conceive of a way to express this meaning and communicate your message without endangering another being. But, of course, it is up to you to decide for yourself.
Works Cited
“Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995”. Guggenheim Bilbao. 2023. https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/ai-weiwei-dropping-han-dynasty-urn-1995
“Ai Weiwei’s Smashed Ancient Urns: Can Destruction be Art?” Future Learn. 2023. https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/art-crime/0/steps/11886
Couzens, Gerard. “Outrage at ‘Starvation of a Stray Dog for Art”. The Guardian. 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/mar/30/art.spain
Goldstein, Caroline. “How Many Animals Have Died for Damien Hirst’s Art to Live?” Artnet News. 2017. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/damien-whats-your-beef-916097