Eldens

Art vandalism has been grabbing headlines, with climate activists targeting iconic works at major institutions. Their actions are intended to shock, but they shouldn’t come as a surprise: these protests are following the tried-and-tested method of using art to attract attention. In this article we’ll explore some of the most famous acts of art vandalism and consider the how it impacts an artwork’s cultural and commercial value.

As of 14 October, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers will forever be associated with soup. In a video that went viral, two climate emergency activists chucked a can of tomato soup at the work, before supergluing themselves to the wall below it. Just Stop Oil, who were behind the demonstration at the National Gallery, said it wanted to “provoke, challenge and shock.” The stunt has certainly provoked a reaction, not least outrage at the apparent destruction of a cultural treasure (in fact, the work remained safely unsouped behind its protective glass). For those who listened to question posed by the activist as she crouched below the painting, “What is worth more, art or life?”, it may have challenged our value judgements. But was this act truly shocking? Art and protest have long been bedfellows, and the vandalism of art (real or perceived) is nothing new.

In 1914, the National Gallery was the scene of a genuine attack on a masterpiece. In a carefully planned protest, the Suffragette Mary Richardson took a butcher’s knife to Velasquez’s The Rokeby Venus, slashing the painting seven times. Her choice of target was directly linked to her feminist cause: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” she said in a press statement.

Fast forward sixty years to New York, where a young artist was looking for a new way to draw attention to the injustices of the Vietnam War. A can of red spray paint and an anti-war masterpiece proved to be a powerful combination. Tony Shafrazi walked into the MoMA and sprayed the words “KILL LIES ALL” on Picasso’s Guernica. He later insisted that he wasn’t defacing the work, but restoring its relevance. “By writing across the painting, I was giving it a voice,” he said, “and by giving it a voice, I was waking it up to scream across the front page of the world.”

All these acts have ultimately left the artworks unchanged: The Rokeby Venus has been restored and remains on display in the National Gallery, Shafrazi’s spray paint was immediately cleaned off, and the soup never touched the surface of Sunflowers. But what about acts of vandalism where the damage becomes part of the work?

Andy Warhol, the most commercially savvy artist of his generation, is an excellent example. The Pop Art pioneer who famously said “being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art” spotted an opportunity when his works were vandalised in his studio. In 1962, Warhol began producing silkscreen prints of celebrities, which quickly gained publicity, none more than those of Marilyn Monroe, who had died of an overdose the same year. In 1964, Warhol’s friend, the performance artist Dorothy Podber, gave Warhol the perfect platform to build on the publicity, thereby increasing the value of those works.

As the sensational story goes, Podber walked into The Factory, Warhol’s New York studio, dressed in black leather, white gloves and accompanied by her Great Dane, and asked Warhol if she could shoot some paintings. When he agreed, she stripped off her clothes, pulled out a gun and shot a stack of Marilyn Monroe silkscreens. The bullet drove a hole through the forehead of the portrait on the top of the pile, and the two behind it. Rather than discard the damaged works, Warhol had them restored, publicised the story, and prefixed the word “Shot” to their titles. It worked: the shot silkscreens sold at auction for double the value of the unvandalised works, with Shot Red Marilyn selling for $4m in 1989, the highest price ever paid for a Warhol at the time.

In 2021, Banksy pulled off the most profitable act of vandalism – on his own work. Three years earlier, Girl with Balloon had sold for £1m at Sotheby’s. Moments after the auctioneer’s hammer came down, the painting started to slide downwards, shredding itself as it passed through the bottom of the frame. The shredding stopped halfway through, meaning that the original was not completely destroyed, rather that a new work was created. Banksy renamed the work Love is in the Bin, and three years later, it sold for a record-breaking £18.5m.

As these famous examples of art vandalism show, a seemingly destructive act can contribute something to the story of the artwork, generating media attention and enhancing market value. As the novelist Graham Greene wrote, “Destruction after all is a form of creation”.