We always protest against the destruction of art. Like life , art is also an act of creation. It tends to proceed towards destruction with time. But generally, we human beings try to preserve art in our own small way. Many instances of destruction of art can be found in history. But there are also a few instances where many famous artists themselves destroyed their own art.
1. Dionysis Karipydis
In 1997, Karipydis had carved a statue of mermaid into the rocks of a Portokali beach in Greece. The artist was issued a fine. To protest against this fine Karipydis took a sledge hammer in his hand and smashed the face of the mermaid.
2. Gerhard Richter
Richter is a famous German artist , who has produced works in paint, photography and also in glass. In the 1960s Richter used a box cutter to destroy his works. He had also burned down many of his paintings. The simple reason behind this destruction was that he was not happy with his work.
3. Blu
The famous artist Blu used to paint walls in Bologna. The city was going to take his works to the gallery. Blu protested and said
“This exhibition will embellish and legitimize the hoarding of art taken off the street, which is only going to please unscrupled collectors and merchants.”
He took a chisel and grey paint and systematically destroyed 20 years of art work
4. Benning
The life like dollhouse created by Canadian artist Heather Benning was recently burned down by the artist.
5. Charles Camoin
Charles Camoin had managed to destroy his art twice. After a succesful exhibition of his painting in1913, Camoin was going through a depression. He slashed 80 of his paintings and kept away the destroyed remains. Writer Francis Cairo revived and restored the paintings. He was sued by Camoin for putting up the paintings for auction. Caimon won the case in court and his paintings were destroyed for a second time.
6. Robert Rauschenberg
Rauschenberg had travelled through North Africa and Europe during the 1950s. He had made collages out of trash and had used cheap objects to create artworks. Several of the art pieces were exhibited in Italy. The artist tossed away the left-overs of his art work into the Arno river.
7. Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns is someone whose works we do not find at all. In 1954 he had an epiphany and-
“decided to stop becoming and to be an artist.”
He destroyed all his art work that he had created till that moment and destroyed all of it.
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