The public and performative destruction of art seems to be having a bit of a moment. In the last three weeks alone, Just Stop Oil protesters have thrown tins of tomato soup over a Van Gogh painting in London (albeit a glass-covered one); a separate group of climate activists has hurled mashed potato at a Monet in Potsdam; and artist Damien Hirst has burnt hundreds of his own artworks after buyers chose to hold them virtually as NFTs instead. So in vogue does this trend seem to be, in fact, that Britain’s Channel 4 last week aired a programme called Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, which it described as a “unique TV experiment where the audience decides whether to cancel controversial artists and offensive artworks”, hosted by a comedian who himself is no stranger to controversy.
对艺术的公开表演性的破坏现在似乎有点火。仅在过去三周里，就发生了“停止石油”(Just Stop Oil)运动的抗议者在伦敦向梵高(Van Gogh)的一幅画作——尽管画上罩着玻璃——扔了几罐番茄汤；另一群气候活动人士在波茨坦向莫奈(Monet)的一幅画投掷土豆泥；以及艺术家达米恩•赫斯特(Damien Hirst)烧毁了他自己的数百件艺术作品，因为有买家选择把它们作为非同质化代币(NFT)以虚拟形式收藏。