MCLC: Ai Weiwei vase broken in local protest (8)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
Subject: Ai Weiwei vase broken in local protest (8)
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I agree. The smashing of an ancient urn can't be morally justified, and
certainly not by "legal ownership" as seems to have been the argument here
even if this is the law, as it is for example in the US today when private
owners can smash anything they own and it is no crime. Bad example for the
world! (Another illustrative historical example of heinous crimes
committed under the "legal" guise of "property" is slavery, also long
justified as "legal ownership" supposedly permitting owners to smash their
property at will. )

And, there is a difference between smashing your electric guitar and a
2000-year old urn. Not just in China, but in global-historical context,
the iconoclastic destruction of antiquities is overwhelmingly not about
"artsy" vandalism, but serves as an extension of genocidal warfare or of
"Cultural Revolution"-style or Taliban-style intolerance; etc. -- and all
these are bad examples to follow . . . even for contemporary artists, I'd
say.

(I also do hope that Ai Weiwei used copies of ancient/prehistoric urns
when he painted Coca-Cola signs on them. Even though it does not make it
much better. )  

On the massive targeted destruction of heritage that goes on in the world,
see f.ex. _Cultural Emergency in Conflict and Disaster_, ed. Berma Klein
Goldewijk et al; Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2011,
http://www.naipublishers.com/architecture/cultural_emergency_e.html; -- I
reviewed it in Anthropological Forum (2012); iFirst article, pp. 1–3.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2012.717016

Magnus Fiskesjö