Art destruction is the decay or material destruction of original works of

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

. This can happen willfully, accidentally, or through natural processes.

Temporary artwork

Many works of visual art are intended by the artist to be temporary. They may be created in media which the artist knows to be temporary, such as sand, or they may be designed specifically to be recycled. Often the destruction takes place during a ceremony or special event. Examples of this type of art include street painting, sand art such as sandcastles, ice sculptures and edible art.

Artists who sabotage their own work

Some artists sabotage their own work out of insecurity, neurosis, or to start over. In 1970,

John Baldessari John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a paint ...

and five other artists burned all the paintings Baldessari had created between 1953 and 1966 in a bonfire. The 2018 artwork '' Love is in the Bin'' by

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive ep ...

was designed with a shredder hidden in the frame, activated upon the painting's sale at auction to destroy the lower half of the artwork.

"Sacrifice" of ritual artwork

Some artwork is made to be intentionally sacrificed in a ceremonial or ritual process, often by burning. *Tibetan sand mandalas are meticulously constructed to visualize Buddhist cosmology, before being swept up and bottled or otherwise ritually disposed *''

Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...

'' is an arts festival in the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

desert which serves as a psychedelic community. On the last day of the festival, a giant wooden mannequin is ritually burned. *The ''

Semana Santa Semana Santa is the Spanish for Holy Week, the final week of Lent leading to Easter. In Spanish speaking cultures as well as Holy Week in the Philippines, the Philippines this becomes an annual tribute of the Passion of Jesus Christ celebrated by ...

'' (Easter week) festival in

Antigua Antigua ( ; ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the local population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua ...

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

, where designs made out of flowers and colored sawdust are created in the street prior to being trampled by a religious parade. *The burning of

Zozobra Zozobra (also known as Old Man Gloom and sometimes branded as Will Shuster's Zozobra) is a giant marionette effigy constructed of wood, wire and cotton cloth that is built and burned on the Friday of Labor Day weekend prior to the annual F ...

during Fiestas de Santa Fe in

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , literal translation, lit. "Holy Faith") is the capital city, capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Santa Fe County. With over 89,000 residents, Santa Fe is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fourt ...

, usually during the second week of September. *The burning of falles in

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

, Spain. * Radoslav Rochallyi claims that his creative process is a ritual of creation and destruction. He claims that for him, the new replaces the old as passionately and carelessly as the old is destroyed.

Iconoclasm

Other works of art may be destroyed without the consent of the original artist or of the local community. In other instances, works of art may be destroyed by a local authority against the wishes of the outside community. Examples of this include the removal of

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

's 1934 ''

Man at the Crossroads ''Man at the Crossroads'' (1933) was a fresco by Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Originally slated to be installed in the lobby of the 30 Rockefeller Plaza, RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the fresco showed aspects of contempo ...

'' mural from the

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art De ...

and the destruction of the

Buddhas of Bamyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (, ) were two monumental Buddhist art of Bamiyan, Buddhist statues in the Bamyan, Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan, built possibly around the 6th-century. Located to the northwest of Kabul, at an elevation of , Radiocarbon da ...

statues by the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

government. *Artworks destroyed in the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

in the United States included a painted wood relief by

Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, ...

, a painting from

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

's ''Entablature'' series and a

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

tapestry. The total value of artwork lost in the September 11 attacks is said to have been in excess of $100 million *In 2017, a terror suspect attacked guards of the Louvre with machetes and was found carrying "bombs of aerosol paint" intended to "disfigure the masterpieces of the ouvremuseum." *In 2023, a bronze statue of

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

, which was begun by Henry Shrady in 1917 and completed by Leo Lentelli in 1924, was melted by the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

References

Bibliography