Vandilism of Art

Monday morning this graffiti showed up on the side wall of the modern wing of the Art Institute and this really makes me mad.   Art the same time I wish I had been able to photograph it before they power washed it because this side wall of the museum is rather foreboding with the 10 foot tall limestone wall. The vandals, which I suspect may be the student inhabitants of the institute, clearly thought it needed something a little more colorful.  Maybe it was meant as a statement about art or the architecture of the building, or maybe just a way for some punk to get some publicity for what he considers art.  HOW DARE YOU! I must mention that the School of the Art Institute is offering a class on Graffiti Art this semester, coincidence?

I wonder what Renzo Piano would think of what they did to his artwork?  I imagine he would expect this type of vandalism to his Pompidou Center in France, but perhaps the building already has a bit too much color.

With some artwork vandalism is expected or even encouraged.  If you walk just a half block east of the new modern wing you will find Chicago's only large scale sculpture by Richard Serra over in grant park.  Compared to recent works the sculpture I am referring to is actually rather small. This 32-ton and 17 foot high Reading Cones sculpture, named for Reading, Pennsylvania where it was made, creates a very odd private space in the middle of the park.  The foreboding scale of the sculpture combined with other factors such as the distance the sculpture is placed from other activities within the park, the private space inside the sculpture, and the industrial oxidized material of the sculpture invites graffiti. 

At one of the schools I teach at there has been some recent theft and vandalism of student work displayed in the main corridor of our building. One student had a drawing stolen that took about 50 hours to complete, and another had multiple pastel paintings tagged.  Again, HOW DARE YOU!  In the case of the art institute the wall can at least be power washed, but what type of person tags a work of art rather than the wall behind it or says "Hey, that would look good on my living room wall" and steals work.

I don't worry as much about my students work being stolen because (aside from a couple of my advanced students) we photographers work with negatives and can therefore make a new version with only a small financial cost and time in the darkroom or at the computer.  But still, HOW DARE YOU!