The public and performative destruction of art seems to be having a bit of a moment. In the last three weeks alone, Just Stop Oil protesters have thrown tins of tomato soup over a Van Gogh painting in London (albeit a glass-covered one); a separate group of climate activists has hurled mashed potato at a Monet in Potsdam; and artist Damien Hirst has burnt hundreds of his own artworks after buyers chose to hold them virtually as NFTs instead. So in vogue does this trend seem to be, in fact, that Britain’s Channel 4 last week aired a programme called Jimmy Carr Destroys Art, which it described as a “unique TV experiment where the audience decides whether to cancel controversial artists and offensive artworks”, hosted by a comedian who himself is no stranger to controversy.
The reviews were universally terrible — “the stupidest take on cancel culture yet” — but I seem to