Vandalism, Art | How to throw a church altarpiece and throw it into the sea

This time it is King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway who has been affected.

The famous equestrian statue of him stands in Amalienborg Castle Square. The pre-study in plaster is from 1754, and until recently it was in the banquet hall of the Danish Academy of Fine Arts, because it was Frederik who founded the school.

As the bust is made of plaster, it has completely dissolved in the water, and in Denmark the action is described as pure vandalism. Why was it thrown into the sea?

Berlingske Tidende reports that a group calling itself Visual Artists Anonymous has posted a video of the incident, where they also explain the “action”:

“By sinking Frederik V into the canal, we want to articulate the ways in which the colonial era is invisible, but still has direct consequences for minorities inside and outside the Academy of Fine Arts. We want an art world that engages and takes responsibility, not just for the actions of the past, but for the ways in which colonialism is still active today. “

I myself once, as a student, witnessed an art student in New York illuminate a Picasso print outside the Museum of Modern Art, when the first full retrospective exhibition of Picasso began its journey around the world.

The student protested that art dating back to the early 20th century was defined as modern art.

I was impressed.

But: the artwork he burned was, after all, his. He set fire to something that he himself had spent thousands of crowns to buy and which was available in multiple copies. It received a lot of attention in the media.

This is something else. This is more than anything comparable to the Taliban, who blew up Buddha statues in areas they conquered in Afghanistan.

Or the so-called Count, the Satanist and then the Nazi who set fire to churches across the country. He probably had some sick reason too.

And we can move on:

Any human ethicist or atheist in Norway could, with the same logic, walk into any church today, shake off an old altarpiece, and throw it into the sea in protest against all the evil that has been done in the name of Christianity through the centuries.

Just think of the Inquisition. Or the Crusades. In the torture chambers of the papacy. Any pope in Rome in the 18th century was probably twice as cruel as the Danish-Norwegian king Frederik, despite the fact that he is said to have owned a slave ship.

Or think of the witch burnings in our own country, which can be studied in more detail at the moving Witches’ Monument in Vardø, a place about which Nettavisen commentator Elin Ørjasæter wrote vividly last summer:

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Here you can find out about the innocent victims, most of the women, of course, often Finnish, Kvens, Lapps or Sami (in other words minorities and indigenous peoples) who were burned at the stake by the church and its henchmen, who They did it out of sheer evil or, maybe some of them … because they didn’t know better.

Whatever the reason: I think it is a rather irrelevant action, today, to start burning the remaining churches in the North Cape in protest against the witchcraft trials 400 years ago. Or what do you say art students here at home?

It is already in a disturbing conflict over several of the same issues as the Danish Academy of Fine Arts, with abrupt fronts here in Oslo as well, plus a rector who has resigned.

Maybe some of you are planning a similar stunt?

A petty robbery at the Munch Museum, perhaps, to burn some lithographs for his highly discriminatory view of women, which was sadly common at the time?

Or perhaps the overturned statue of Karl Johan in the castle square, or King Haakon a little further away at the Foreign Office? They must have said or done something stupid too.

Or what do you say, maybe they should sit down and talk a bit calmly?

He discussed whether it was possible to find other more relevant forms of action, which do not place him in the same category as the Taliban or the Count or the cold-blooded arsonists in the North Sea.

Do you know you have another option? You could do something sensible, you know:

You can, for example, go on demonstration trains, organize discussion meetings, write angry articles in the media in defense of minorities, or perhaps better: create works of art on fire against the injustice of the world. Could it be a suggestion?

Because you are aware that you yourself are sitting on quite powerful weapons? Yes Yes.

Just think of Nick Ut’s photograph of the so-called napalm girl in Vietnam. Or the Norwegian work American Butterflies by Per Kleiva, with the same theme.

Both images have become iconic, because they helped turn public opinion into a bloody and unjust war.

How and why did they do it?

Because outstanding art is roughly 1,000 times more effective at waking up or engaging people than the childish, stupid toss-up actions that five-year-olds might invent.

It is just a suggestion, a suggestion of alternative and more effective forms of action before committing stupid things where the police will have to tow you, where you can incur compensation demands and a couple of hefty well-deserved fines, and you will probably be expelled from the Academy of Fine Arts. And I’ve blamed you for the rest of your life

But that, of course, presupposes that you do something can, or have the prerequisites to do, try to be an artist.

Think about it.