Iconoclasm

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Iconoclasm Iconoclash

• Readings Mitchell Offending Images and Latour
  Iconoclash

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Silencing the past
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Public Outrage
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Vandalism Iconoclasm

• Vandals as ignorant, silly, senseless, stupid

Goya No sabe lo que hace
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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--

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Iconoclasm?

• Destruction of images linked to rational acts,
  meaning or connections of images to something--
  but how?

Ofili Virgin Mary
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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

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Inclusion --Exclusion the democratization of
image censorship
Mid-Summer Night Swing Dancing at the Lincoln
Center, NYC
Headbangers--Heavy metal fans

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vPhGx4Rh0Qo8

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Identity issues the meaning of images

• Inclusion/cohesion
• Visual images as expression of identity,
  difference (distinction)
• Exclusion
• Discriminatory Dimensions
• Censorship and/or Democratization

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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

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Examples from Mitchell

• Richard Serras Tilted Arc

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Maya Lins Vietnam Veterans War Memorial
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Lin
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Mapplethorpe
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Michelangelo David
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Swastika
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Confederate Flage
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Jasper Johns Flag
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Marcus Harvey Myra
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Damian Hirst
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Poussin Adoration of the Golden Calf
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Serrano Piss Christ
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Offili

• Outrage over Virgin Mary?
• Outrage about symbolic desecration

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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 destroyers own feelings

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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

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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. publics rights governments duties to
  enforce standards
• issues-- what standards, whose standards?

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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