Art Under Attack at Tate Britain | Exhibition Review

THE UPCOMING
By Angela Chan

Ortiz’s 1966 Piano Destruction in Art Symposium

UNITED KINGDOM---Tate Britain’s new exhibition brings forth works of British art, from medieval to contemporary, with emphasis on the fact that they have been vandalised over the past five centuries. The exhibition is split into three broad sections to outline how religious, political and aesthetic intentions have contributed to the destruction of artworks and how its consequences have reinforced further meanings behind the pieces. Beginning in the religion rooms, reformation iconoclasm depicts state-authorised amputation of Roman Catholic power and practice, through scratched-out altarpieces and “physical, brutal attacks against the figure” in religious sculptures. Plans of attack on religious art are emphasised as highly calculated and the display attempts to sketch this. [link]