1. Iconoclasm & Iconoclash
Readings: Mitchell “Offending Images” and Latour “Iconoclash”

2. Silencing the past

3. Public Outrage

4. Vandalism & Iconoclasm
Vandals as ignorant, silly, senseless, stupid
Goya No sabe lo que hace

5. 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,

6. Iconoclasm?
Destruction of images linked to “rational” acts, meaning or connections of images to something-- but how?
Ofili Virgin Mary

7. 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

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

9. Identity issues & the meaning of images
Inclusion/cohesion
Visual images as expression of identity, difference (distinction)
Exclusion
Discriminatory Dimensions
Censorship and/or Democratization

10. 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

11. Examples from Mitchell
Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc

12. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veteran’s War Memorial

13. Lin

14. Mapplethorpe

15. Michelangelo David

16. Swastika

17. Confederate Flage

18. Jasper Johns Flag

19. Marcus Harvey Myra

20. Damian Hirst

21. Poussin Adoration of the Golden Calf

22. Serrano Piss Christ

23. Offili
Outrage over Virgin Mary?
Outrage about symbolic desecration

24. 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

26. 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

27. 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?

28. 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