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Iconoclasm & Iconoclash. Readings: Mitchell “Offending Images” and Latour “Iconoclash”. Silencing the past. Public Outrage. Vandalism & Iconoclasm. Vandals as ignorant, silly, senseless, stupid. Goya No sabe lo que hace. Iconoclasm vs. Vandalism?.
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Iconoclasm & Iconoclash Readings: Mitchell “Offending Images” and Latour “Iconoclash”
Vandalism & Iconoclasm • Vandals as ignorant, silly, senseless, stupid Goya No sabe lo que hace
Iconoclasm vs. Vandalism? • deliberate destruction of images rooted in religious, political, cultural beliefs or groups etc. vs. Ignorant behaviour. Which is it? • Example: Destruction of 3rd c. A.D. Buddhas by Taleban in Afghanistan completed March 12, 2002--
Iconoclasm? • Destruction of images linked to “rational” acts, meaning or connections of images to something-- but how? Ofili Virgin Mary
Why are some images kept & others destroyed? • Personal (family) Networks & Values • Community-based criteria • Other factors (sometimes concurrent) • Scholarly • Political • Economic • Moral & ethical • Class-based (elite, popular) agendas etc…. • Variations in meaning over time
Inclusion --Exclusion & the democratization of image censorship http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGx4Rh0Qo8 Mid-Summer Night Swing Dancing at the Lincoln Center, NYC “Headbangers”--Heavy metal fans
Identity issues & the meaning of images • Inclusion/cohesion • Visual images as expression of identity, difference (distinction) • Exclusion • Discriminatory Dimensions • Censorship and/or Democratization
Mitchell--Why do some images offend? • False Assumptions: • Images transparently linked to what it represents (doing something to image, does something to what it represents) • Images “feels” what is done to it
Examples from Mitchell • Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc
Offili • Outrage over Virgin Mary? • Outrage about symbolic desecration
Latour: Why do images inspire hatred? • ways of understanding iconoclasts • Inner goals • Roles ascribed to images • Effects of destruction on others • How reactions of those assocciated with images are interpreted by iconoclasts • Effects on the destroyer’s own feelings
Fuseli: Artist weeping in despair …. • diverse meanings of the disappearance & rejection of artworks • Vandalism vs. Iconoclasm • Vandalists: ignorant, senseless • Iconoclasts: deliberate opposition, “rationale” grounded in system of values
Censorship as an outcome of democratization • artists’ & minority publics’ rights to • “self-expression” or • freedom of speech (1st Amendment in US) • But systematic suppression • VS. public’s rights & government’s duties to enforce standards • issues-- what standards, whose standards?
Typology of Iconoclasts • A-- against images • B-against “freeze-frame” • C-against opponents’ images • D-Unwitting destroyers • E-Ironic destroyers • Message? Interrupte vs. cascading images