[AS Weiwei//Gébor Altorjay//John Baldessarl//Monica Bonvicini//Alexander Broner//Stuct Brisley/ Jan Chwatezyk//Bruce Connet//Nina Fischer//Terry Fox//Isa Genzken//Douglas Gordon//Huang Yong Ping// Enrique Jezik//2Zdzistaw Jurkiewicz//Milan Knidak//Mae« urtycz//John Latham//Paul McCarthy//Gordon Matta- Clark//Gustav Metzger//Otto Muehi//Yoko Ono//Raphael Montatiez Ortiz) Petr Paviensky//William Pope L.//Walid Raad//Arnult Rainer//Rammelizee//Jean-Pierre Raynatic Maroan el Sani//Carolee Schneemann//Barbara Schurs// Song Dong//Tamés St. Auby//Wolf Vostell//Yarisal & Kublite//Yoshihara Jiro Alain Badiou// Joseph H, Berke//Susan Buck-Morss// Jacques Derrida Mara Polgovsky Excurra//Hal Foster//Federico Galende// Richard Galpin//Dario Gambont//Klaus Gbmer//Laura Grayy//-Joan Kee//Caleb Kelly//Kenneth Kemble//Raiji Kuroda//Bruno Latour//Jerzy Ludwifiski//Tobie Nathan// Chon A. Norlega//Aldo Pellegrini//John Roberts//Kristine Stiles//Jalal Toulle//M.J. Williams//Milkhail Yampolsky DESTRUCTION acuWhitechapel Gallery Londer ‘The MIT Press y Documents of Contemperary Art‘phd vase ay aad eva ay ne Crap meton B SESSA see See te stem Sitio aon eecraTaas ‘Sens con a a8 SB Sosnge at ater ee cme ae Lhitechapel Gallery {Steward (88/2005) Bal ram oe of ional sons coerce srs 2 Wace set eee ‘Samm nbn tae (UK and tape ot) = Documents of Contomperary Art I recent decades artists have progressively expanded the boundaries of art as they have sought to engage with an increasingly pluralistic environment Teaching. curating and understanding of art and visual culture are likewise no longer grounded in traditional aesthetics but centred on significant ides, topics and themes ranging rom the everyday tothe uncanny, the psychoanalytical to the politica The Documents of Contemporary Ar series emerges fom tis context Ech volume focuses on a specific subject or body of writing that has been of key lnfluence in contemporary arc internationally. Fated and introduce bya scholar, ats, critic or curator, each ofthese source books provides access toa plurality ‘of voices and perspectives defining significant theme or tendency For over a century the Whitechapel Galler has offered 2 public platform for artand ides. nthe same spirit each guest editor represents distinct yet diverse approach — rather than one institutional position or schoo of thought ~ and has foneelved each volume to address not only 2 professional audience but all interested eaders= ? Destruction has no INTRODUCTION//14 place in society - DESTRUCTIVE CREATION//56 it belongs to our NEGATIONS/46 dreams; it belongs : Gy GES BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES//226 °o BIBLIOGRAPHY//229 INDEX//233 AGKNOWLEDGEMENTS,DESTRUCTION’S CONSTRUCTS Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Manifesto of the Casarauntsl Party, 1648//28 Walter Benjamin Ecard Fuchs: Collector and Historian, 1937//29 Friedrich Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morais, 187/31 Martin Heidegger Being and Time, 1927//31 Walter Benjamin The Destructive Character, 1931/33 Joseph A. Schumpeter The Process of Creative Destruction, 1942/35 Virgil Jordan Manifesto for the Atomic Age, 1946//36 Jacques Detrida The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing, 1967/36 Federico Galende That Strange Passion for Fleeing Criticism, 2005//38 Alain Badiou In Conversation with Catherine Grenier, 2005//40 Alain Badiou Destruction, Negation, Subtraction, 2007//42 John Roberts On the Limfts of Negation in Badiou's ‘Theory of Arf, 2008//44 DESTRUCTIVE CREATION Amulf Rainer Why until 1953 I tore up many of my works, used them as heating material, or threw them in the trash, 1969//58 Jacques Villeglé Collective Realities, 1971/58 Wolf Vostell dé-coll/age, 1971//60 ‘Wolt Vostell Manifesto, 1963//62 Germano Celant From Collage to Décollage, 2014/63 Robert Rauschenberg On Erased de Koonisig Drewing, 1987//65 Yoshihara Jiro Gutai Art Manifesto, 1956//66 Raft Kuroda: A Flash of Neo-Dada: Cheestul Destioyers {In Tokyo, 1993//69 Aldo Pellegrini Foundation for an Aesthotic of Destruction, 1961//72 Raphael Montaiiez Ortiz Destructivism: A Manifesto, 6.1961~62//75 Erlstine Stiles On Raphaol Montatiez Ortiz's Destructive Process in the Early 19605//77 Chon A. Norlega Raphael Montaiiez Ortiz Early Destruction, 1997//81 Niki do Saint Phatle Statoment, 1987//83 Dario Gamboni The Destruction of Art, 1997//83 Jean Tinguely On Homage fo New York, 1962//84 John Fisher Destruction as « Mode of Creation, 1974 //85 Gustav Metzger Manifostos of Aulo-Destructive Art, 1959-61//87 Gustav Metzger In Conversction with Clive Phillpot, 2009/89 Yoko Ono Pisce for the Wind, 1962//91 Yoko Ono Travel Piece, 1964//91 Kenneth Kemble Destructive Art, 1961//92 Milan Kniiék Destroyed Music, 1979//95 Caleb Kelly Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction, 2009//96 Aman Statoment, 1964//100 Otto Mush! Supermarket, 1966//100 Raphael Montatiez Ortiz Statement, 2019//101 Josoph H, Berke Slciomont for Destruction in Ast Symposium, 1966//102 John Latham Statement for Destruction in Art Symposium, 196/104 Kristine Stiles Tho Story of the Destruction in Ast Sympostum and the 'DIAS Affect, 2005//105Richard Galpin Frasuie in Ari: Destruction, Deconstruction anc Ralimpsest, 1998//127 Norman Bauman Five-Year Guarantee, 1968//131 Terry Fox On. Worle 1969-70, 1970//133 Amult Rainer Simiia: fo the Principle of Ovarpainting... 19T0//134 Jerzy Ludwiriski Wiociw *70, 1970//135 Gordon Matta-Clark In Conversation with Liza Béc, 1974//138 Pamela M. Lee On Gordon Matte-Clarke Splitting, 1999//139 Rammellzee Iconic Treatise: Gothic Futuriam, 1979//140 Felix Gonzalez-Torres In Conversation with Tim Rellins, 1993//143 Michael Landy Statement, 2015//143 Jake & Dinos Chapman Statsment, 2013//144 NEGATIONS John Baldessari On Cremation Projo! and Gramation Project with Corpus Waters, 1970//148 Jean-Pierre Raynaud In Conversation with Gilbert Periain, 2006//149 Huang Yong Ping Stztoment on Burning, 1986//150 Kevin Hatch Looking for Bruce Conner, 2012//151 Carolee Schneemann Tie Lebanon Series, 2001//182 Jacques Derrida Archive Paver, A Freuctian impression, 1995//158 Walid Raad/The Atlas Group Let's bo honost, the weather halpect (1998), 2006//162 Jalal Toufic The Witharcwel of Tradition Past ‘aSurpassing Disaster, 2009//163 Dario Gambon! World Heritage: Shield or Taxyet?, 2001//164 ‘MJ. Williams Framing Art Vandalism, 2008//171 Tobie Nathan Broaking Idols ...A Genuine Request for Initiation, 2002//173, Bruno Latour What {s Iconoclash? Or Is There a World, ‘beyond the Image Ware? 2002//178 ‘Mikhail Iampolski In the Shaciows of Monuments: Notes ‘on Ieaneclasm and. Time, 1995//179 Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani In Conversation ‘with Boris Groys, 2007//181 Susan Buck-Morss Ephemeral Archivas, 2011//183 Enrique Jefik In Conversation with Cuguhtémoc Medina, 2011//185 Lucy Skaer Statement, 2013//187 DISINTEGRITY Gabor Altorjay The Lunch (in Memoriam Batu Khan), 1968/7190 Mara Polgovsky Ezcuna Shaman, Thespian, Saboteur Marcos Kurtycz and the Ritual Poetics of Institutional Profenation, 2016//193 Louise Bourgeois On The Destruction of the Father, 1986//199 Otfo Mueh! How to Escape the Swamp, 1977//201 Stuart Brisley The Constitution of Shit, Dust and Grime, 2003//201 Paul McCarthy Substance Subsiitute: Hummels, 2009//204 ‘Alexander Brener and Barbara Schurz The Art of Destruction: Dances on the Bosses’ Heads, 2005//205 Svon Spiekor Bataille’s Museum, 2001//207 William Pope In Conversation with Martha Wilson, 1996//209 Hal Foster Funtastlc Destruction: Isa Gerken, ao1i//210Klaus Gémer Division-UnityFragmsniation: Laura Gray ‘No Construct ‘Goxamnics, Sculpture an Petr Paviensky Ths Goal of Art is Destruction, 2014//220 ‘Monica Bonvicini In Conversation with Alexander ‘Albarro, 2014//221 Song Dong A Song of Old and New, 2015//222 Joan Kee The Law in Our Hands, 2016//228 | WAS VERY AGGRESSIVE PUTTING THE ACID At THAT NYLON, AND WITH A GAS MASK. IT WAS PARTLY ME ATTACKING THE SYSTEM OF CAPITALISM, BUT INEVITABLY ALSO THE SYSTEMS OF WAR, THE WARMONGERS, AND DESTROYING THEM, IN A SENSE, SYMBOLICALLY‘Sven Spieker Introduction//The Uses of Destruct in Contemporary Art |Anti-Aet from the Avant-garde tothe Neo-Avant-garde From the decomposition of traditional madels of palniing by arte informal srt such as Alberto Burr and Lucio Fontana i the 1940s and 50st tne anti- Sreand media-citical practices of the 19605, to noe recent challenges art as institution and it roe in globalizing capitals, the strategy of destraction marks 3 erucal step in the deemphasis on craft and sl that has characterized the history of art since Duchamp. From then onwards, all (ant-) art has been compli in the erosion of what the crite Peter Burger refered f0 as art’ ‘Werkcharoter ts integrity a8 aesthetic object. Destruction, we might sy. the point at wich the art object, deprive of intrinsic aesthetie value can only be ‘estroed in order to preserve in its demise, modicum of sedetermination, ‘Yet pechaps this definition either to general or too specific to acount for the multifarious uses of destruction in twentieth and twenty-fst-centuty art For artists. destruction as often implied not merely the fight against the (art) object but also, transversally fight for anew, "nore personal relationship with objects. The fist interpretation ~ destruction as a form of resistance to the ‘material object ~is Inexorably Ue 4 Whe ki ofthe readymade, itself the product ofa radical, and destructive effort to analyse the logic ofthe ar object. ‘Te second marks a less rational, animistic side of destruction: a push €© eliminate the boundary that separates the artis from hisfher environment and to uncover emational energy, offen rational or repressed inthe process. “The complexities of destruction were not lost en members of the early ‘wentleth-centuryavant-gardes, whose various destructive poetics constitute 3 fol tothe more recent material explored inthis anthology. An ea, impactful ‘example ofthis force as both destructive erasure and life-investing energy is Katimir Malevich's lack Square (1913) a painting that shows nothing but aback square upon a white ground fin one sense Blot Square founded on Malevich negative desire to strike out the history of painting, in anther sense it i conceived ofa ‘positive’ antidote to painting’ addiction to representation ~ a means to unleash what the artist referred to as ofcuene: pure feeling: an immaterial sensuous substrate fo which he was forging a connection ‘The English word destruction comes from the Latin destruee (to destroy). a ‘compound of struere (to bulld) and the prefix d (away fom, down fom, out of) ‘which expresses reversal thus the literal senses to u-uil. Destruction then, ‘anaot be thought of without reference tits opposite construction suggesting that an objec destroyed may aso be berated inthe proces. Inded it would note to dificult to discover in, say, Gordon Mata-Clrk's idea of anarchtecture “his cutting. spliting and slicing of buildings, but aso ther subsequent partial reconstruction = both the buildings’ destruction and their iberaton as objects from the constraints of architectural form? Destruction, then, israely tantamount to pure negation, ls creative potential often es precisely i its incompleteness, inthe lingering references to What is being decomposed or dismembered, or, more generally. inthe vestiges and traces destruction leaves behind. Think of Robert Rauschenberg’ observation on his wellknown Erase de Kooning Drawing (3953). The artist had asked his esteemed colleague Willem de Kooning to give him a drawing so that he could erase it 1 \was tying to make art and therefore I had to erase art® There is nothing metaphorical about Rauschenberg remark: wherever he deleted aline with one this erasers he firmly established another line that trace the shadow of the first, pradicing an archive of destruction? And while we may classify Erased de Kooning Drawing asa playful struggle by a younger artist with a owering father figure, it would be hard to miss the fact that Rauschenbergs destruction also figures as an act of iil inscription, confirming our suspicion that destruction both separates and binds at one and the same time. Destroying as Process Destrtion ar, or destruction in at, arguably refers less to an ideal stato of| accomplished non-being - the metaphysics of total annfiaton - chan to the techniques designed to bring about such atte, and to their aesthetic ethical and egalimpliations in shor, toa materia proesthislso helps explain the ruc relevance of destruction forthe history of performance art). Among the process- bound technique of destruction touched upon in this anthology we nd cutting. slicing and spliting (Matta-Clrks anarchitectre), burning (ohn Balessar's auto-remation), Slrring (Woll Vostel), erasing (Rauschenberg), daubing. aiming oer, striking out (Aral Ranes, paling down ripping. sawing shooting (iki de Saint Pha) acd bombing breaking and even (ore) digesting: consider John atham who in 196 invited his students join hm fora dinner whase main course was famously the at critic Cement Greenber’s 1961 edition of calected essays, ArtandCulue. Chew intoa pul, the pages were solved, dstled, and the fermented licuid sealed in several glass vials Latham eventually received an ‘overdue notice from te library and promt attempted to return one ofthe fille als. However, the Mbray rejected the vial as unreadable Lad anefforttohamess decomposition to an (ant) pedagogy designed to circumvent the constructive pedagogical ideal ofthe Enlightenment, doesnot simply destroy Its objec it switches the later’ aggregate state from book to pulp. ‘Splete//Te Uses of Destuction In Contemporary A/15‘The techniques of destruction mentioned above, and many others besides ~ explosions, crushing. compression, eradication by natural elements such 3 snd fire or water~ mark an elaborate archive of destruction knowledge. In reine cases euch insight follows the trajectories f rational negation, empowering ests to take charge oftheir own biography. When in 1970 John Baldessari Jfestroyed al of his paintings made between 1953 and 1963 as a prelude to “Cermating: them, he used this auto-destructive at to mark his transition ftom painter fo conceptual artist, confounding the widespread expectation that an Prat’ biography should move harmoniously fm one stage of development to fhe mnexe nar cases, suchas the Vienna Acionists ritually infected theate of destruction - a set of pracces that convulsively responded to the artists toperiences during the Second World Wat ~ destrcton intervenes directly i= ‘raumatie individual or collective histories. In yet other instances, as with the Polish born Mexican artist Marcos Kurtyczor with Raphael Montafiez Ortiz for Tenor, as Kristin Stiles wits, the destruction process. created a bridge etween his inztlectal sources and his erotic, emotional energes®~ it helps tsablsha conection with knowledge that exceeds the limits of rationality ‘wile many artists have made their destructive interventions, such as smashing, ashing. buming or cutting, inside the spaces of museums and fallereso her own studios others have aimed atthe material structure seit (rares insltutions, Examples range from Swis artist Urs Fischer's rupturing of alery walls, such a5 the Installation You (2007), to Berlin-based Monica Bonvci’s installing of drywall on an exhibition Noor so that it would crack ‘under the weight of visitors as they walked around (Mastered, 1998) and Liz Lame’ early piece Corer dasher (1988), 2 mechanical seulpture that swung 2 tall and chain against the walls of ee gallery. In 1986 Chris Burden had set 2 precedent for this kind of work by installing a 100-ton jack connected to 2 [earbox anda turstil inside a museum. The ack pushed two large timbers out agains the museu's walls. Visitors pasing through se turnstile had to move it and with each such movement the jack slighty expanded, so that if only ‘ough people visited the exhibition it would eventually destroy the buildin Burden sot off an almost imperceptible process of destruction to suggest the tenistence ofan ltemative, covert history that unfolds as it were in the shadowe ofthe visible progression of art movements and masterworks thats commonly ‘shown on museum walls ‘Unlike that offi history, the imperceptible movement of destruction the artist unfeathes is founded not on originality and uniqueness ~ the signature ‘irtues of moderism -buton repetition: che turnstile tums and turns ike the Spool inthe hands of Sigmund Freus nephew, who makes his appearance in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ (1922), a text in which Freud famously gave wjwrmoDuCTION himself ove to speculation abou: what he called the death drive (Toestib), a tendency towards self-destruction aggression and an organism's reduction toan anvorganic state As early asthe 1960s, the radical ant-art programme of destruction was also extended t9inelude atacks on modernisas patriarchal foundations. om 1961 to 1970 Nk de Sain Palle created paintings by shooting at plastic bags of colowred pain: embedded between a stretched canvas and morphous coatings of white phster. She aimed, among other things, a the nyt of Oeipal (male) creativity that dives modernism from within; In 1961 1 shot at Daddy, all men. shot because Iwas fascinated watching the panting bleed and die | sho for that monren of magic" Often artists have sought to take charge of archives in order to challenge male iconographic monopatis: consider Bonvicin’s 1998 compilation of excerpts om auteur fms ofthe 1950s to the “7s, Destroy Se Suid or Martha Bosler’s Bringing the War Home: House Beauifal setes (1967-72), with its violent scenes from reportage photograpiy ofthe ‘vietnam War callaged into spreads of ideal homes fiom the interior decor rmagarine. Rosler appropriated archival images of devastation in onder to demonstrate the contiguity of seemingly incompatible poliveal and representational order: wat, 07 the one hand, and the ‘feinine™ peaceful household back home, on the oer Creative Destruction and Its Crique ‘The destruction of artworks, whether it occurs within the gallery seting or ‘outside, has ramifications beyond the isttutions of ar, especially with respect to the lay. While inthe United States and Western Europe there have been a umber of well-documented cases where corperate owmers destroyed the (public) works they owned without much legal challenge, artists, to, have willy destroyed or damaged the work of other artists. In many cases this happened o challenge explicitly the questionable legal sanctity fart ownership, Sch was the casein 1994 whes Chinese dissident artist Al Weivel dropped a Han dynasty um tothe Noor ard hed the act photographed, or in 1957, when Moscow actionist Alexander ener sprayed 2 dolar sign over an criginal painting by Malevich at Amsterdam’s Sede Museum. As Joan Kee argues Ai raises the question of whether art ownership implies a mora responsibilty regardless of whether such responsibility is enshrined or notin lave In Brener's ‘ase the artists vandalism ofa ence iconoclastic and now publily-owned piece of avant-garde arte not only anegregious prank t's also designed to remind us of the art museum's own historcl but now largely lst avant-pards role? ‘A least wo takes on the reationship between destruction and (capitalist) production can be imagined: one redemptive, with destruction considered organic part ofthat production; the other unredeemed here, ater than being ‘plete Tho Uae of Desrctlon in ContenpoaryAr/17assimilated into the production cycle and losing its distinctive ferures inthe ‘cess, desrcton retains its negative tats. The fst. edemptveappraach ins tmously championed by the economist Joseph Schumpeter who, i Cantatiom, Socialism and Demsray (1842), portrayed market capitalism 28 Srocture that continuously raews isef through the programmed cytical demise. and mutation of ‘ts various constituent gars, In Schumpeters cteersanding already hinted arin Marxand Engels’ 1848 Commun Mansi}, productive forces periodically challenge or destay the bourgeois civilization {hey previously helped create, Thus the assimilation of destructive effets trough a process ofschpferche Zerstéran (creative destruction) Lies a the ‘ety heart ofthe capitalist enterprise ‘by contast, in the 1930s Walter Benjamin had hinged his critique of ‘capitalism nat on destruction 3s the counterpoint fo production but rather on the destructive potential within capitalist production tel, what he calls the ‘estructve side ofthe dialectie With this term, Benjamin sought to capture vat he viewed asthe rupture in the bond that tied technology and capitalist Production to the satisfactin of buman needs during the industraiing rineteenth century, With the explosive expansion of production capacities {Guring the ovenieth century that bon ne Tonge he as technology developed herpes that far oustripped all haman needs. The inability to channel these ergs bel into (peaceful rodcsion would lead ultimately to conflict an ‘var What Benjamin anticipate s someting tha, while 2 very familar today, was unthinkable to Scrumpeter, namely the possibilty that (capitals) production may itself always already be destructive. ‘tthe end ofthe 1950s the German-born Jewish artist Gustav Metzger began to theorize his auto-destucive ar, followed by experiments with self tdestrcting works made by pouting acid on nylon, and Laer by wat is today recognized asthe watershed Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) tha he c= ‘organized in Landon atthe rica Centre in 1966, wth related events at the Institue of Contemporary Ars and other venues, reconvened in Nev Yorkat the siudson Memorial Church, Greenwich Village in 1968 These projects represented Limon ther things, anatterpt to confcont the postwar equivalent of Benjamia’s “Gestrucsive side ofthe alec. i, a miltaryindustrial complex atcheted Up tycold-war paranoia and excess capitalization. Metagers choice of ron for his fist experiment with paintng-by-destructon was surely no coincidence: used fs new material in the Sevond World War for military equipment such as parachutes and flak jackets, ayion was also ofcourse the material of women’s ‘Stockings and other items of mass-produced clthing, exemplifying an amalgam ‘ot wartime destruction, postwar eisized consumption and eapitalt spectacle that became the focus of Metager’s art and ofthe DIAS events, y/ANTRODUCHION Décollage/Destruktion Cf key importance for destruction in the 1960s was the technique of décollage that refered to the use of torn and often lacerated fragments of wall-posters found in urban locations. Décolage not only opposed the painterly aspects ofthe early twenteth-century pupier-cllé, it also intervened in the naturalized genealogies of developed capitalism. Not coinddentally, Vostll developed his take on what he wrote out as décolfage ~ disinguishinghimsef inthis way from te terns more regular transcription by Nimmo Rotella an¢ others» from newspaper report about ajetine thar crashed shordy after take- (décllage in Feneh}, Understood literally, décolige (coer: glue together) means that someting joined together i being forced apart. andi isin this dual sense that Vostll understood the term: 252 take-off o anew begining the form of cataclysmic decomposition. In this way, the Tew beginning reveals its own prehistory, yet only a the point were that history falls par, Unlike traditional