Thursday, October 11, 2007

Art Vandals

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe which (towards the end of the Roman Empire) swept down from Germany and left a path of destruction in their wake (thus the word "vandalism") as they marched through Europe in search of food and warm lands. Eventually, together with another German bunch of hungry barbarians known as the Visigoths, they settled in Spain by the millions and became a significant chunk of the modern Spaniard and French DNA. The Vandals settled mostly in the South, and gave their name to the region today called Andalusia in Spain (from "Vandalus").

Recently, in Lund, a small university town in southern Sweden art vandals attacked "The History of Sex," an exhibition of photographs by the New York artist Andres Serrano. Read Carol Vogel's report here and Bailey's unique take here.

For the last several years, the Swedish artist Felix Gmelin has been interested in artworks that have literally been destroyed in museums, galleries, or other public spaces. In the art project Art Vandals, Felix Gmelin reinterprets twelve works that have been subjected to vandalism. Check it out here.

No comments: