Since its installation in 1913, the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has faced repeated acts of vandalism, frequently attracting political statements and protest actions.

On April 24, 1964, the statue was decapitated, and the head was never recovered, with the act believed to be carried out by politically motivated artists, but no charges were filed.

On July 22, 1984, the statue’s right arm was sawn off but recovered and reattached shortly afterwards, and two young men confessed to the crime.

In January 1998, the statue was again decapitated, this time the head was returned anonymously to a nearby TV station, but those responsible were never publicly identified.

September 2003 saw the statue blasted off its stone base using explosives, likely as a protest, leading to restoration and its reinstallation a few months later.

Over the years, the statue has also been doused several times in paint—orange, red, and blue—often as a form of political protest or as an act of attention-seeking by individuals and activist groups.

Notably, in May 2017, the statue was covered in red paint to protest Denmark’s policies on whaling, and in June 2020, it was tagged with “racist fish” graffiti amid renewed global debates about race and monuments.

Another politically charged act occurred in March 2022, when a Russian flag was painted on the statue’s base in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The repeated damages to the statue reflect evolving social tensions, serving as a focal point for expression, political discourse, or protest through iconoclastic acts.

In each case, local authorities and social commentators have debated the meanings and implications of such acts, which complicate how public monuments are perceived and preserved.

Although many acts remain unsolved or are attributed to unknown individuals, each incident underscores the statue’s symbolic resonance, vulnerability in the public sphere, and ongoing role in debates over art, politics, and collective memory.

Between 1964 and 2023, Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue has repeatedly been the target of acts of vandalism and other intentional damage.

The first major incident occurred on April 24, 1964, when the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists, with the head never recovered.

On July 22, 1984, vandals again decapitated the statue, but this time the head was returned anonymously and reattached.

The mermaid’s right arm was sawn off and stolen in 1989, later found and reattached by authorities.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the statue was several times doused with paint, including green paint in 1998 and bright red in 2006, typically as a form of protest for animal rights, anti-whaling activism, or other political causes, with perpetrators often unidentified.

In September 2003, the statue was blown off its base by explosives set by unknown individuals, requiring significant restoration.

In 2017, vandals used red paint to write “Danmark defend the whales of the Faroe Islands” at the base of the sculpture, referencing whaling practices, but no suspects were arrested.

In May 2020, the words “racist fish” were sprayed onto the rock the statue sits on as part of the international Black Lives Matter protests, again by unknown vandals.

Other less severe incidents have included the placing of clothing or accessories on the statue as a protest, causing no physical damage.

All incidents have typically prompted swift restoration and heightened security, but very few perpetrators have been identified or prosecuted.

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, created by artist Edvard Eriksen in 1913, has experienced several instances of repeated and intentional vandalism over the decades.

The first major incident occurred in 1964 when the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists led by Jørgen Nash, and the head was never recovered, requiring a replacement to be made.

In 1984, the statue was again targeted and decapitated by unknown vandals; this time, the head was returned anonymously and reattached.

In 1990, vandals sawed off the right arm of the statue, which was also returned shortly afterwards.

On several occasions the statue has been doused with paint: in 1961, in 1984, and again in 1998, red and other colored paints were splashed on the sculpture, mostly as acts of protest or random vandalism by unknown perpetrators.

In 1998, the Little Mermaid was blown off her granite base with explosives, which resulted in the statue being knocked into the harbor, but it was later recovered and restored.

On March 8, 2003, the statue was again toppled into the water in an apparent protest coinciding with International Women’s Day, and authorities retrieved and reinstated it.

Acts of vandalism have more recently involved the statue being draped in clothing or objects as political statements and graffiti being painted on her rock.

For example, in May 2017, the words “Free Hong Kong” were spray-painted on the rock, and in June 2020, the phrase “Racist Fish” appeared as part of anti-racism protests, though the individuals responsible were not identified.

Despite repeated repairs and restorations, the statue remains one of the most iconic landmarks in Denmark and continues to be a target for acts of political protest, artistic rebellion, and random vandalism.

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has been the target of repeated acts of vandalism since its unveiling in 1913.

In 1964, the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists, and although the head was never recovered, a new one was cast and attached.

In 1984, vandals again decapitated the statue by sawing off its head, which was later returned anonymously to a nearby television station and reattached.

In 1989, the statue's right arm was sawn off and stolen by two young men, only to be returned undamaged after a nationwide appeal.

On several occasions, the statue has been daubed with paint, notably in 1961, 1963, 1967, 2007, 2017, and 2020, often as acts of protest or in relation to political causes.

In 1998, the statue was blown off its stone base using explosives, with the lower part of its body being discovered in the harbor and the statue subsequently restored.

In 2003, the statue was draped in a burqa and a Danish flag was painted nearby, believed to be a protest against Turkey’s application to join the European Union.

In 2017, the statue was painted red as a protest against whaling by the Faroe Islands.

In 2020, the words “racist fish” were found spray-painted on the base of the statue, apparently referencing contemporary debates around racism.

The vandalism episodes often coincide with wider social or political events, with perpetrators using the statue’s iconic status to draw attention to their causes.

Between incidents, the statue is repeatedly restored by city authorities, yet its symbolism as both a national icon and a target for dissent persists.

Since its installation in 1913, the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has faced repeated acts of vandalism, frequently attracting political statements and protest actions.

Title:

Content: Russian Flag Painted on Copenhagen's Most Famous Landmark

It's the latest in a long line of attacks on Little Mermaid statue
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 2, 2023 10:15 AM CST

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, one of Denmark's most famous landmarks, has been vandalized yet again, this time with the Russian flag. Authorities said Thursday that the white, blue, and red stripes of the Russian flag were painted on the stone the statue sits on, Reuters reports. Police said the vandalism was discovered early Thursday. "We are of course launching an investigation to find out who did it and when and how it happened," a police spokesman said, per Jyllands-Posten.

Denmark, like other European nations, has strongly criticized Russia's war against Ukraine. The small statue, a tribute to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, sits off a waterfront promenade in the Danish capital. It has been vandalized many times since it was installed 110 years ago, AFP reports. It has been decapitated twice and was knocked off its base with explosives in 2003. In 2017, it was doused in red paint in a protest against whale hunting. In 2020, during worldwide protests after the death of George Floyd, the words "racist fish" were painted on the base, though Andersen scholars said they weren't aware of any racist elements in the fairy tale. (Read more The Little Mermaid stories.)

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On April 24, 1964, the statue was decapitated, and the head was never recovered, with the act believed to be carried out by politically motivated artists, but no charges were filed.

Title:

Content: Care is a Creative Act:
An Interview with Arwen Donahue

By Martha Park

I keep slipping out the back door of whatever discipline I settle on.

Introduction

Landings: A Crooked Creek Farm Year (Hub City Press, 2022) is Arwen Donahue’s written and illustrated account of a year on the Kentucky farm where she lives with her husband and daughter. The book’s first page sets up some of the thematic threads followed throughout the book: the way life “interrupts” art-making, Donahue’s sense of distance from her own life as a farmer in rural Kentucky, and the way this distance from—or resistance to—the work of the farm is “cured,” in a way, by the work itself.

Donahue’s previous work is wildly varied. Her first book, This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak (The University Press of Kentucky, 2009) collects oral histories and photographs to tell the stories of nine Holocaust survivors who settled in Kentucky. Next, from 2009 to 2017, Donahue conducted oral histories with Kentucky writers on their relationships to the land. The Kentucky Writers on the Land Oral History Project is archived at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. Several years into this project, Donahue began painting watercolor portraits of the writers she interviewed for an exhibition titled, Rooted Words: Kentucky Writers on the Land.

She has also published a series of comics in the Rumpus, The Nib, LitHub, and elsewhere on a wide range of topics: farming, her mother’s death, reproductive health, and Donahue’s own experience getting an abortion at the last abortion clinic in Kentucky. Old Man Gloom, a 16-page, full-color Xeric Award-winning comic, focuses on Zozobra, is a 50-foot-tall paper effigy of gloom that is burned annually in Donahue’s hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

As a person who also writes and makes art, I’m drawn to Donahue’s expansive and varied work, and was curious about her experience discerning the form for Landings, in which each short, written entry paired with a painting ushers the reader through a year on Donahue’s Kentucky farm.

Interview

Martha Park: How did you arrive at the structure of your book? Did you begin with paintings, or text, or both? How did you know you didn’t want to make a comic-style book, where text and images were fully integrated?

Arwen Donahue: There was precious little successful premeditation involved in creating Landings. It started out as a sort of technical exercise: I wanted to improve my skills with watercolors so that I could do a responsible job of painting those portraits you mention. I had sort of a grandiose idea that I was writing a big hybrid book—part oral history illuminated by portraiture, part graphic memoir, and part history of the peculiar role that the idea of agrarianism has played in American life.

The drawings of daily life on the farm became a small part of this rangy, years-long interdisciplinary process. After I finished the year of drawing Landings, I kept working on the oral histories and portraits, and worked on farm-related comics. I still had the idea that all of these things might come together in some singular work, but I could not get my arms around it.

After all that, I suppose it’s no surprise that Landings has such a simple form: every spread has a drawing on the recto and an accompanying piece of writing on the verso. Nearly a decade after finishing the drawings, I returned to the structure I started out with, and wrote the text. When I stopped pushing in various directions, it seemed to just fall into that form. It was a relief to work within such strict limits, after years of allowing my mind to wander. I knew each essay had to fit on a single page, and that it had to obey the prompt of the drawing it accompanied, but I aimed to bring something of what I had learned in the years-long process of interviewing, reading, and ruminating on farming, art, community, and history. Since it is in part a book about accepting the requirements and limits of each day, and the limits of the land and our human lives on Earth, this form feels about right.

Martha Park: One of my favorite themes of the book is the sense of friction between yourself as an artist and as a farmer. Early on in the book, you write, “Since we moved to the farm 14 years ago, I’ve attempted to protect that practice by segregating art and farming, by building a moat around my artmaking and retreating to it as a refuge from the farm’s demands. Farming was David’s dream, not mine. Art has been an act of resistance to the reality of my life on the ground. But what is happening here…? I’m still defiant of the farm’s relentless need… but these drawings are also leading me deeper into my life in this place.”

As a mom to a toddler, I’ve had to intentionally work on welcoming interruption and accommodating art into my life, rather than the other way around. As much as I dream about escaping to some hermitage where I can seal myself off from distraction and responsibilities to write, I’ve found that it’s healthier for me to abandon attempts to compartmentalize art, writing, and motherhood in favor of trying, instead, to see them as deeply related and in conversation with each other. At the same time as I seek a sense of integration, I am also aware that living in this tension also seems integral to actually being able to make art and to write about my life.

I’m curious about how the making of this book affected the way you see yourself as an artist, a writer, a farmer, and a mother, and the ways these roles work with each other. I am wondering if you feel like you are in a different place now than you were when you were making this book.

Arwen Donahue: I love these observations, and how you have come to an understanding of needing to work in a way that is not only creatively sparky, but healthy. Art and healing have a mysterious relationship, it seems to me. I see the danger of freighting art with such a utilitarian burden, yet culturally, of course, we have a long habit of setting art too far away from spheres that are considered the province of women, such as motherhood and domesticity. I find in the farm I call home a fascinating interplay of the wild and domestic; of drudgery and fascination; of terror and joy; of scarcity and abundance. Here on the farm, we deal in the building blocks of human survival—and yet I grew up thinking farms and farmers were not particularly interesting. In a world that is so fractured, why not call upon art to make us more whole?

It’s hard to pin down how exactly I am in a different place now than I was while making the book, since making it was such a long, meandering process. One obvious shift is that I am in my 50s now, my daughter is in college, and I am able to claim more time and space exclusively for writing and drawing. I am, of course, grateful.

Martha Park: Much of Landings runs counter to any expectations of what a “year in nature” book or an agrarian story would feel like or be about. On a page when you write about visiting a scenic farm retreat, you draw the junk cars and wheel tracks, the “broken and raw” land you pass along the way. A beautiful painting showing you in tree pose in a field is accompanied by a story about a neighbor telling you to wear orange to protect yourself from hunters on your own land. You draw your daughter in the barn, wearing a red knit cap with devil horns.

I love the way the life of the farm is melded with life that might otherwise seem apart from the farm: arts funding for schools, the freelance work you take on to help pay the bills, tax returns, a dinner of stale popcorn and beer. While you’re drawing and writing about farm life, is it ever hard to avoid romanticizing or aestheticizing your daily views and experiences? Was it ever difficult to really see and describe it honestly?

Arwen Donahue: There is no shortage of memoirs that aestheticize or romanticize farm life, and I had no interest in contributing to those dusty stacks, but I also did not want to tilt the scales over to the side of ugliness and complaint. The fact is that David and I are reasonably well-educated cisgender white people from more or less middle-class families, and cultural and familial support enabled us to undertake our long adventure in farming. In other words, we are among the world’s most privileged citizens.

There is a wide range of experience in what our government defines as “poverty”—on paper, we have been impoverished for most of our farming years, and yet by any reasonable, historical measure, we should be considered wealthy. I have hoped that Landings might add a touch of nuance to our cultural conversations about what both poverty and wealth look like, and what those words really mean.

The way our globalist, capitalist culture segregates art and land is a symptom of our Earth-desecrating disease.

Martha Park: What was it like to go back through illustrations and structure a year-in-the-life book while in another stage of your life entirely? I personally find this very heartening—time seems to be moving at such a warp speed at this stage of parenting, and I worry if I don’t capture something now, I’ll miss it entirely—it is very lovely and encouraging to think about revisiting a time that has passed and being able to make such a cohesive work of art about it.

Arwen Donahue: This is a question I often asked myself while working on the book. If the writing was purely retrospective, it risked being an exercise in nostalgia. Right now, we don’t milk goats and cows every day; I’m not canning tomatoes in the steamy kitchen throughout the month of August; I’m not struggling to get our local elementary school to value an arts education. Yet the past is still present, in many ways. We keep returning to questions we had at the beginning of our lives here, such as: How can we learn to be better caretakers of this land that sustains us? What does a life guided by the limits of the land really look like, especially in an era of radical climate instability? What does success look like here, and what does failure look like?

These questions, embedded in years of work, have yielded some stories I could not have told when I was right in the midst of the toil. It was essential to ground the narrative in its particular moment, while recognizing that I still have something crucial at stake in the unfolding story of my life in this place. If I catch myself thinking that I have some grand wisdom now that I did not have then, I remind myself that I am mistaken. I’m still right in the middle of this life, which has always been and will always be in motion.

Martha Park: You mentioned in a previous interview that you have felt pressure to choose to be either an artist or a writer, and that you finally realized you are both. I have also felt this pressure to specialize or focus on one thing. And while I was initially drawn to your work as a visual artist, I really fell in love with your gorgeous writing in Landings. I am wondering if Landings changed your relationship with writing, specifically?

Arwen Donahue: One of the tricky things about working in multiple forms is recognizing which best suits a particular piece of work. I have just finished a draft of a book that began as a graphic memoir. About a year into the process of drawing and writing, it became clear that I needed to tell the story entirely in words and not concern myself with how to represent it visually. It is a story about my mother’s life and death; more specifically, it is about how her voice was violently stolen from her at a very young age, and my posthumous attempt to reclaim a conversation with her about our matrilineal inheritance. I did not learn a very crucial piece of her life history, the most violent piece of it, until after she had died.

There were so many stories that had been forced upon and taken from my mother (and, by extension, me, and my daughter) that I really needed to write the whole thing out. It took a while to accept that, because I had started to think of myself as a graphic memoirist. I keep slipping out the back door of whatever discipline I settle on. Yet I trust that all of the back doors are connected to one central chamber.

Martha Park: I’m curious about your journey to find a publisher for Landings. How did you make your way to Hub City Press? What was the experience like, finding and working with a publisher?

Arwen Donahue: Landings’s journey to publication was—in keeping with everything else about its creation—meandering. After finishing the year of drawings, I put a bunch of them up on my website. People would tell me now and then that the drawings should be made into a book, and I would agree with them, but I knew it would be hard to find a publisher for a full-color book about a year on a farm. What would the hook be?

Several years later, after publishing a story for The Nib about my own abortion experience and the challenges for rural women and pregnant people in abortion access, I heard from Sam Stoloff of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. Sam had visited my website—he told me he loved the Landings drawings, and would be happy to help me try to find a publisher. He agreed it was going to be a challenge, but was motivated to give it a shot. He was an incredible friend and guide in the process of writing and submitting the book. But we did not find a publisher, and I regretfully turned my attention to other things.

I gradually came to understand what Landings’s “hook” was: it is the story of an artist’s journey to understanding that care of the land is a creative act, and that the way our globalist, capitalist culture segregates art and land is a symptom of our Earth-desecrating disease. It was not really surprising that no major publisher was willing to take it on. A year or so passed before it occurred to me that I still had some options to pursue in the indie press world. I especially liked what Hub City Press was doing, and I submitted the manuscript to them. Hub City had never published a graphic memoir before, but they loved the book, and were willing to venture into this new terrain. It seems to me that the book could not have found a better publisher—if Landings had been taken on by a larger house, it likely would not have gotten anywhere near the thoughtful attention, care, and hard work that the Hub City team gives to all of its titles.

Martha Park: Could you tell us a little more about your next, forthcoming project?

Arwen Donahue: I just finished a draft of the manuscript recently, so its fate is still very uncertain. The working title is Matrilineal. That story reaches back to my mother’s maternal grandmother, who came to the U.S. alone from Poland as a 12-year-old girl—part of the wave of Jewish immigrants to this country around the beginning of the 20th century. She landed in New York, married an abusive man, and lived in poverty, and the family she left behind was later annihilated in the Holocaust. Her daughter (my grandmother) struggled with mental illness and was abused by her own father. My mother inherited all of this, and had the further great misfortune of being violently attacked as a child. Because of the sexual nature of that attack, her own confused mother burdened her with shame and blame. My mother struggled throughout her life between the desire to speak the truth of her life and the desire to be free of her own history.

Matrilineal is an unpacking of this inter-generational voicelessness. It is me asking my mother after her death for guidance, in light of this history, in how to be a daughter, and how to be a mother to my own daughter. I could not fully ask her these questions while she was alive, because I did not learn the whole story of what had happened to her until after she died, when I read her journals.

Now that I’ve finished a draft of that manuscript, I have returned to work on the graphic memoir out of which it was born. It’s interesting to notice how some stories seem to want to be told in words, and others in pictures!

I am delighted to share that I have just been awarded the 2023 Cornish Residency Fellowship from the Center for Cartoon Studies to work on this graphic memoir. I’m so grateful for the opportunity dive deeply into this work.

Catch up with Arwen Donahue at arwendonahue.com.

Martha Park is a writer and illustrator from Memphis, Tennessee. She is a 2022-2023 Fellow with the Religion & Environment Story Project and a recipient of the William Graves Sackett Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, The Guardian, Grist, The Bitter Southerner, ProPublica, and elsewhere. Follow her on Instagram.

Read two essays by Martha Park appearing in Terrain.org: “The Last Time,” prose and illustrations, and  “Depth Sounding,” prose by Martha Park and photos by Brandon Dahlberg, in Terrain.org.

Header image by Arwen Donahue.

Terrain.org is the world’s first online journal of place, publishing a rich mix of literature, art, commentary, and design since 1998.

On July 22, 1984, the statue’s right arm was sawn off but recovered and reattached shortly afterwards, and two young men confessed to the crime.

Title:

Content: X

Indonesia

Indonesian fishermen save Virgin Mary from the sea

Act of vandalism is being seen as an 'event of faith' by Catholics

Catholics pray in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary saved from the sea. (Photo: Handrianus Atagoran)

A statue of the Virgin Mary that was reportedly dumped in the sea by a mentally ill man in Indonesia was rescued from the sea by fishermen in an incident that has moved Catholics to look at it through the lens of faith.

The statue was found by two fishermen in a bay near Lewoleba off Lembata, an island just east of the Catholic-majority island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara province, on Nov. 24.

A video recording the moment they retrieved the floating statue went viral on social media and became a widely discussed topic among Catholics.

Rudi Keraf, one of the fishermen who found the statue, said at first he thought it was driftwood and his first reaction was to ignore it.

"But then something told me differently. My heart said I had to go back. It turned out that what we found was a statue of the Virgin Mary," he told the news portal Kupang.tribunnews.com.

He said the statue was intact, in an upward position and in her hand was a rosary.

It's interesting that although people already know where the statue came from, Catholics see it as an event of faith

After lifting the statue onto the boat, he and his companion embraced it and prayed. "I was very moved. I am a sinner but I managed to find a sacred object," he said.

Handrianus Atagoran, a Catholic in Lembata, said it was discovered that the statue had come from the grave of a priest in a coastal village which was taken by a mentally ill man and thrown into the sea.

"It's interesting that although people already know where the statue came from, Catholics see it as an event of faith," he told UCA News.

"People are queuing to come and pray at the statue, which is currently in the house of the fisherman who found it."

Some consider this as a warning that the region will be hit by a natural disaster, he said, adding that most see it in a more positive light as a sign of providence.

Also Read

In January 1998, the statue was again decapitated, this time the head was returned anonymously to a nearby TV station, but those responsible were never publicly identified.

September 2003 saw the statue blasted off its stone base using explosives, likely as a protest, leading to restoration and its reinstallation a few months later.

Title:

Content: Navigation

Who decides who is put on a pedestal?

Monuments in public spaces are a politically charged issue, with closed circles of experts often making decisions about who or what gets memorialised in Switzerland. In an opinion piece, a group of academics and curators argues that the time has come for greater transparency and new types of commemoration.

This content was published on February 27, 2022 - 10:00
Philine Erni, Sarah Grossenbacher, Rachel Huber and Vera Ryser

The Swiss women’s strike in 2019 and the Black Lives Matter movement that began in the United States in 2020 have helped to raise questions about the politics of memory in Switzerland. In the country’s public spaces, there is an absence of memorials to women, people with migration experience and people of colour.

The authors

Philine Erni is an art and literary academic and will be part of the management team of Theater Winkelwiese in Zurich from the 2022/23 season.

Sarah Grossenbacher studied history, sociology and spatial planning and is co-head of urban planning at the City of Lucerne.

Rachel Huber has a doctorate in history. She researches and teaches at the Department of Modernism at the University of Lucerne and is co-founder of the Historians' Network Switzerland.

Vera Ryser is a freelance curator, exhibition organiser and literary academic. Among other things, she co-initiated the project Das Wandbild muss weg!External link (The mural must go!).

End of insertion

Instead, it is mostly white male figures standing on pedestals of bronze or stone. For decades – centuries, even – they have represented Swiss progress, innovation and success. What’s often overlooked is that their success and wealth are built on, among other things, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, the keeping of slaves or their support for the slave trade.

Various voices have demanded that statues of such figures be transferred to museums or re-interpreted and their hidden stories be revealed and displayed.

The year 2021 marked 50 years since Swiss women obtained the right to vote. Many academic conferences and media reports, such as one in the German-language NZZ am SonntagExternal link newspaper, took stock of progress made in that time: roughly 70% of artworks shown in Swiss museums are by men; nine out of ten streets named after a prominent figure are named after a man; and women go largely unmentioned in history books.

The need for a diverse culture of remembrance is clear. But how can such a polyphony be taken into account when dealing with the existing monuments in public spaces?

Who decides? And why is there no public discourse?

Depending on their significance, existing monuments in public spaces fall under the responsibility of either city or cantonal heritage authorities. But deciding which structures can receive heritage status – and therefore become officially part of public remembrance – is the responsibility of heritage conservatorsExternal link. Normally these decisions come without public consultation, even in the case of public monuments that hold great symbolic and political significance.

Thanks to political pressure, in the city of Zurich a working group (Kunst im öffentlichen Raum or Art in the Public Space) is examining 26 statues, while the historian Georg Kreis is looking at “just under 40 monuments”External link. These studies are generally welcome, but they still raise questions: Who are the experts in this case and who is being brought on to offer advice? And why is there no public discussion, despite there being a highly political question at the core: how do we as a society want to remember the past?

Regulations exist primarily on the protection and preservation of monuments. Even artworks commissioned for public spaces are created for eternity, barring damage. Can activism alone prompt a swift removal? Vandalism can touch a nerve, but it only solves the problem of unbalanced representation in public spaces in a selective way. As seen with demands since the 1970s from feminists that public squares and streets be renamed, little has changed structurally: the demands are far too seldom complied with to this day.

Yet involving locals in a discussion is both possible and sensible. In recent years, many municipalities have gathered experience with participative processes. These have taken many forms: surveys, roundtables and workshops, even games and guided tours, both digital and in person. Why aren’t these forums being used to talk about public monuments?

What must we rethink or unlearn?

At this point, it is worth taking a look at the current restitution debate, where the art historian Bénédicte Savoy and the economist Felwine Sarr have called for a “gesture of restitution” with considerable success. “Gestures of removal” or “completion” could serve as a good starting point for a new approach to memory culture. They could also contribute to a new type of relationship between segments of society that are over-represented and those that are under-represented – one that gives a sense of community and belonging.

This approach would be based on the view that history, too, is “in constant flux,” as the historian Achim Landwehr puts it: the past, present and future are all related and historical narratives are constructs of the present-day perspective. This concept of history inevitably calls into question today’s assumption that monuments are valid for eternity.

To forge a new culture of remembrance that’s fit for our times, cities and towns need to actively promote a new type of relationship in public spaces, not just to protect their monuments, but also to renew them. The recent call to supplement the statue of David de Pury in Neuchâtel with works that will initiate a critical dialogue about the original statue of the Swiss banker and slave trader, and the Zurich project group to combat racism in public spaces show that Swiss cities are beginning – albeit slowly and within the constraints of existing structures – to take an interest in a new remembrance culture.

This new culture requires existing specialist juries to relinquish their power and make way for more participative strategies and greater transparency. This way it would be possible, at last, to anchor our towns’ public spaces in the present and distance ourselves from the misunderstanding that “heritage” should serve as a lasting commemoration of a system bequeathed to us by the past.

Existing statues would be complemented by achievements and realities that are part of our society but are not memorialised in public spaces – and therefore remain invisible. They include women, the LGBTQ community and people of colour as well as subjects that remain socially taboo: forced labour and Switzerland’s policy on foreign seasonal workers, for example. One pre-requisite for a diverse, intersectional culture of commemoration and remembrance would be that these “others” can participate in political, legal, institutional and cultural life.

Anyone who wants to contribute to this must work on visibility. It starts with basic research. And we have to establish different and more current forms of remembrance: “edit-a-thons” (where authors create articles collectively on neglected historical women for the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia) or hashtags such as #metoo and #blacklivesmatter. Perhaps these are examples of a future memory culture: they are participative and digital, ephemeral and volatile.

(Translated from German by Catherine Hickley/gw)

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of SWI swissinfo.ch.

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Over the years, the statue has also been doused several times in paint—orange, red, and blue—often as a form of political protest or as an act of attention-seeking by individuals and activist groups.

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Content: In recent months, a surge of environmental activism has spread across the art world, with campaigners going to extraordinary lengths to raise awareness about climate change and environmental issues. However, some environmental activists are resorting to destructive techniques, such as defacing artworks and disrupting art exhibitions, provoking controversy and discussion in the art community. While their commitment to the environment is admirable, the question remains: are these behaviours crucial, or do they harm the exact same cause they are trying to promote?

One of the latest incidents that sparked this debate involves a group of environmental activists infiltrating a renowned art gallery and splattering red paint on a collection of significant and valuable artworks. As well as damaging a well-known and valuable target such as Vermeer’s Girl with A Pearl Earring; the protesters are urging us to evaluate our values and principles.

Climate activists from the “Just Stop Oil” organisation used glue and red liquid paint to deface Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece in protest of the rising expense of living and the climate issue.

The event occurred in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague in October 2022, where the artwork is on exhibition, and was captured on film.

Their message was clear: Art must serve the catastrophic nature of climate change and the devastating effects of human activity on the environment. The eco-activists engaged are motivated by a desire to raise awareness about the climate change catastrophe by shocking and perturbing, the role of big oil in hastening environmental deterioration, and the urgency to save the planet.

Safeguarding cultural legacy

Nevertheless, the art community responded promptly and severely. Many others denounced the activists’ destructive behaviour, claiming that there are more constructive methods to increase environmental awareness without resorting to vandalism. The vandalised artwork, some of which were irreplaceable pieces of art, was viewed as the casualties of an irrational and futile protest that harmed the very cultural legacy they wanted to safeguard.

While the intentions of these activists may have been admirable, their techniques have raised serious concerns about the ethics of protest and the limits of advocacy. Is it acceptable to sacrifice art for the cause of environmental activism? Can the objectives genuinely justify the means when it comes to raising awareness about critical global issues?

Some in the art community expressed empathy with the campaigners’ objective whilst questioning their methods. They claim that art is a global language that crosses borders and ideologies and that defacing paintings simply alienates potential allies in the fight for the preservation of the environment. There are worries that such behaviours could harm the credibility of the environmental movement and overshadow the importance of the message they are attempting to express.

On the contrary, some supporters of the activists believe that dramatic actions are required to break the complacency and indifference that frequently dominate climate change discussions. By defacing paintings and interrupting art exhibitions, activists bring the subject to the forefront and demand attention to a cause that is frequently overlooked or minimised in popular discourse.

Furthermore, by staging their stunts in public galleries, where many visitors have mobile phones, activists could be confident that footage and images of the acts would receive instant attention. By using non-corrosive materials and minimising damage to the works under attack, they avoid the public outrage that wilful destruction would elicit.

Distinct ethical quandaries

In their opinion, the shock value of such activities is a powerful instrument for sparking change and rallying public support for environmental protection. They target to appear to ruin something that people respect and connect with culture. Their idea is that if we don’t have a planet, we will lose everything we appear to cherish the most.

The controversy regarding environmental activists’ methods in the art sector is not new. Throughout history, artists and activists have utilised artistic expression and civil disobedience to oppose injustice and promote social change. However, the purposeful defacement of artwork presents distinct ethical quandaries that call into question traditional conceptions of activism and protest.

As the art world deals with the consequences of these activities, it is critical to participate in a dialogue that balances the preservation of cultural and artistic legacy with the importance of addressing environmental concerns. While environmental activists’ purposes may be laudable, the techniques by which they strive to attain their objectives require careful study and criticism.

In conclusion, recent occurrences of environmental activists defacing paintings and disrupting art exhibitions have sparked a debate at the nexus of art, activism, and environmental issues. While their commitment to the environment is valuable, some activists’ techniques have generated ethical concerns and separated the art world.

As the debate continues, all parties must engage in a constructive discourse that respects the importance of art while also recognising the critical need for environmental action. Ultimately, the challenge is to strike a balance that acknowledges both the cultural tradition of art and the urgent requirements of environmental advocacy in an increasingly interconnected and vulnerable world.

Maram Saleh, a Bahraini law student, finds inspiration in the realms of research and writing.

Notably, in May 2017, the statue was covered in red paint to protest Denmark’s policies on whaling, and in June 2020, it was tagged with “racist fish” graffiti amid renewed global debates about race and monuments.

Another politically charged act occurred in March 2022, when a Russian flag was painted on the statue’s base in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The repeated damages to the statue reflect evolving social tensions, serving as a focal point for expression, political discourse, or protest through iconoclastic acts.

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Content: Smashing statues

Iconoclasm isn’t just an expression of anger. It’s how we try to make new worlds.
February 17, 2023
(Source image from Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Sometimes, bored indifference can sting worse than outright hostility. I was telling a friend about my present book project, The Storm of Images, which concerns the iconoclasm struggle in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries. In my view, it’s a pivotal moment in the definition of Eastern and Western Christian traditions, so I was somewhat deflated when my friend asked, in effect, Why on earth would you want to do that? It’s so long ago, and the whole story is, well, Byzantine, a word that through the centuries has acquired plenty of negative baggage.

Fortunately, I was able to articulate a response that went beyond the simply defensive. In fact, I would argue, the whole story of iconoclasm is of perennial significance, a fact that should be as obvious today as in any previous era. Not only is smashing images an absolutely standard and recurring part of what societies do, but it is a fundamental part of religious sensibility, and by no means only for Christians. Simply put, it’s the way that we try to make new worlds.

Image smashing arises from two distinct impulses. Some iconoclasm grows out of hatred of a particular individual or the beliefs and causes that they represent. Here the smashers are striking at the figures represented, seeking to purge their memories as evil and unwanted. Such were the attacks on Soviet and communist images following the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989. More recently, in the United States, we see assaults on statues of Confederate heroes such as Nathan Bedford Forrest or Robert E. Lee. Through attacks on objects, activists are attacking the larger causes represented by those images. The United States has, since 2020, experienced a historically very sizable and socially transformative outbreak of iconoclasm, which has been echoed around the world.

Other smashers may truly venerate or love the individuals depicted, but they reject the depiction itself. In this category, far from condemning the figure represented, activists are driven by the exalted view that they have of that person, and they are rather agitated by the very notion of representing them in material or visual form. Such representation is thought impossible, the attempt evil or blasphemous. Any form of worship or prayer directed at objects is unacceptable, and it is futile to draw distinctions between worship and veneration, of praying to a material thing as opposed to praying through it. This attitude, this rejection of material images as such, was a fundamental driving force in the European Reformation—one at least as important as any particular theological doctrine of any given thinker.

The smashing of images is commonly one sensational aspect of a larger package of religious innovations, often of a quite revolutionary character. These tenets might include an assertion of inner spirituality over external or material symbols, along with perhaps a stern rejection of institutional religion or professional clergy.

Iconoclasm coexists intimately with anticlericalism. It is a rejection of existing notions of authority and a quest for whole new groundings, free of the claims of tradition. Depending on the context, the destruction of religious images can be an assertion of the supremacy of secular authority, of kings and governors over bishops and priests. The fact of destroying supposedly sacred objects—and remaining unharmed—sends a powerful message about the futility of those objects. If they are so potent, why can they not even protect themselves?

For both categories of iconoclast, their achievement lies not in destroying a given statue or altarpiece but in asserting the power to do so, against the power of the old order that hitherto had been its shield and defender. To strike at a statue or image—to bring down a Confederate general—is also to attack the institutions or individuals that erected those figures in the first place and who support their maintenance. It is a symbolic statement of who controls the visual landscape.

Moreover, the mass public violation of older taboos and restraints proclaims the impotence of that old guard. The fact that authorities no longer have the will or ability to prevent the removal of such once-cherished things in itself proclaims the end of an old world and the creation of a whole new order of society or politics. It is zero hour.

Even when the matters at issue are ostensibly secular, such acts of protest often acquire a ritualized format, which has echoes of enthusiastic or revivalist religion. Scenes of the removal of statues or images unforgettably proclaim these moments of revolutionary transformation. They are deliberately theatrical. In a modern context, visual representations of such acts of destruction become iconic in their own right. In their power to teach values, the acts of removal or destruction are as didactic as the images they are combating.

Making images is a perennial and fundamental component of the human religious experience, and so is crediting them with supernatural powers. But no less common is the practice of critiquing or destroying them. Sometimes we commemorate people’s faces; at other times we deface, and with equal passion. In order to be balanced and objective, a hypothetical museum of global religions should properly include its share of hacked and defaced icons, of fragments of toppled and shattered statues. The never-ending dialogue between the two competing approaches, the smashers and the devotees, has often driven religious thought and artistic expression.

John Calvin famously declared that “the human mind is a perpetual factory of idols.” I would adapt that to say that, time and again, history proves that the human mind is a powerful factory of image breaking, of iconoclasm.

In each case, local authorities and social commentators have debated the meanings and implications of such acts, which complicate how public monuments are perceived and preserved.

Although many acts remain unsolved or are attributed to unknown individuals, each incident underscores the statue’s symbolic resonance, vulnerability in the public sphere, and ongoing role in debates over art, politics, and collective memory.

Between 1964 and 2023, Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue has repeatedly been the target of acts of vandalism and other intentional damage.

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Content: Right now
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Cloudy, No precipitation
Feels like 18.
4 m / s, zap
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Traffic jams
5 / 10
Rituals on graves and lost gilding.
St. Petersburg museum workers about the growth of vandalism
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Valentin Egorshin / Fontanka.ru
The Museum of Urban Sculpture is sounding the alarm: in St. Petersburg, the level of vandalism is growing.
Experts ask citizens and tourists to save the budget money and stop picking priests sphinxes.
And yet not to remove the gilding from the monuments, because to sell it still will not work.
The sphinxes from the Egyptian bridge were returned from restoration only in December 2022.
The restoration work lasted more than three months.
The sculptures were cleaned, treated from corrosion, gilded parts and painted in the color of oxidized bronze.
All the splendor cost almost 5 million rubles.
For restoration, by the way, the price is not surprising.
As Nadezhda Efremova, a senior researcher at the Museum of Urban Sculpture and curator of the collection of monuments, explained to Fontanka, in such matters, in any case, we are talking about millions.
Repeat the whole process was planned no earlier than ten years later, but in June, damage was noticed on one of the sphinxes.
The cover moved away from the sculpture exactly near the fifth point.
The Museum of Urban Sculpture concluded that the character of the chip is mechanical: “We will not take it to say what exactly they (damage. – Approx. ed.) were inflicted.
A shoe, a hand, anything.
Unfortunately, the pedestals are low, there is a lot of transport and people there.
These sphinxes are among the most “affected. ”
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The victim was promised to patch up before the end of the summer - this is the deadline for the end of the restoration season.
For this, you will most likely have to request additional funding.
As it usually happens in state organizations, the budget in the Museum of Urban Sculpture is drawn up immediately for a year in advance.
The hole on the cover of the monument, as the photographer of “Fontanka ” was convinced, meanwhile, is expanding.
By August, it will certainly increase in size.
By the way, the neighbor of the sphinx on the other bank of the Fontanka also had time to suffer: he had chips closer to his back.
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“By the middle of this year, we are almost at the point of just 2022 in terms of the number of acts of vandalism.
Last year there were 32 of them, this year there are already 22, ” the press service of the museum says.
The statistics included cases with graffiti, traces of paint, scratches and other damage to the paint layer.
The curator of the collection Nadezhda Efremova laments that in St. Petersburg there is no longer that reverent attitude to the monuments, which helped to preserve them to the present day: “The war began on June 22 [1941], and on June 25 the museum has already received a directive on the urgent shelter of monuments in the city.
All employees of the museum received instructions where to go to get the necessary building materials.
And the Bronze Horseman?
Since the time of Alexander I, the legend has been preserved that as long as he stands in his place, no enemy soldiers will enter the city.
During the historical excursion, the employee recalls Klodt ’ s horses on the Anichkov Bridge: “For many citizens, the end of the war was marked by the fact that on June 2, 1945, the horses returned to the Anichkov Bridge.
Then people finally realized that the war was over. ”
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In December 2022, not only the sphinxes from the Egyptian bridge were returned from the restoration, but also the lions that stand on the Admiralty Embankment.
From the side of this can not be seen, but the back of one of them after six months has already been pierced.
“They give the impression of such powerful lions, but in fact they are very fragile.
Inside the lions are hollow and have no supports.
Pushed copper, from which they are made, in thickness from 3 to 5 millimeters.
Almost like a piece of paper, ” explains Nadezhda Efremova.
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The damage was discovered after the "Scarlet Sails".
Experts believe that the lion could have been pierced by accident.
For example, a bottle or some other object.
But graffiti, for example, can not be written off on the will of chance.
Most often, inscriptions appear on pedestals that are easy to reach.
Special anti-vandal coatings do not always save: the matter is in the characteristics of the material.
The pedestal of the same Klodt horses is made of forged granite, which is distinguished by small notches.
As a result, the paint is clogged in the pores of the stone and can be removed only with a special compressor and after many hours of work.
It is no coincidence that the disappearance of gold.
According to experts, it is cleaned in the hope of reselling.
Disappointment awaits the vandals immediately: “Gold leaf is thinner than a human hair.
It turns into chips, rubbish.
For what?
Completely senseless act.
The naked surface is not protected, so the monument is again waiting for restoration.
We don't have much choice.
We have to do something — or watch the monuments being destroyed before our eyes. ”
A separate pain of museum workers is rubbing the protruding parts of the sculptures “for luck ”.
Rubbed to shine noses and shoes are both thinning of the metal, and the loss of author ’ s study.
The curator of the collection explains that such a sign eventually leads to the destruction of monuments: “The most reliable protection of metal is natural patina (a coating that is formed under the influence of the natural environment and is able to protect the author ’ s metal. – Approx. ed.).
When it is removed, acid rain, guano, and other contaminants fall on this bright area.
And the metal itself can not protect itself, the surface begins to corrode, corrosion processes develop. ”
Such monuments are also restored, but on the sculptures especially beloved by tourists, the artificial patina can disappear in a few hours.
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Rubbed for luck sculptures are found even in protected areas.
For example, in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts, which is also part of the Museum of Urban Sculpture.
Especially visitors love the leg of an angel at the burial of Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
Head of the department of memorial sculpture Daria Zaleshina says that rubbing the leg began only in 2019.
This is probably due to a new urban legend.
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Fans of mysticism here in general and pulls: the jewelry on some tombstone thrown, the photo with burned eyes will leave.
As the guardian of the necropolis suggests, all these artifacts are associated with certain rituals.
The trend for magic emerged after the series “Battle of psychics ”, filmed in the museum secretly.
However, the findings, although terrible, do not harm the exhibits.
At least nothing needs to be restored.
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The first major incident occurred on April 24, 1964, when the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists, with the head never recovered.

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Content: In Russia, Marmorica Luca was stolen
From the mountain park "Ruskeala" in Karelia stole his symbol, the statue of Marmoric Luke
In the famous Russian mountain park “Ruskeala ” in Karelia, the statue of Marmoric Luke, a man who is the main symbol of the tourist complex, has disappeared.
This is reported on the page of the park in “Vkontakte ”.
Employees of the complex said that the main Marmoric, the “owner ” of the mountain park, who“ always received guests with great love, respect and warmth ”, was stolen.
The incident was called an act of vandalism and theft of someone else ’ s property.
"We would like to remind you that the consequences of vandalism can be very serious, because it is a crime that causes material and moral damage," the statement said.
Staff warned that the culprits would be brought to justice.
At the end of May, in another Russian city, Ufa, the famous monument to Mite Valera was stolen - the culprits were two graduates of a local school.
The object was considered the smallest monument in Russia.
It was a silver-molded figure of a tick, mounted on a pedestal with the inscription “I just, like you, want to live! ”.
It was not possible to return the monument, but less than a month later a new monument appeared on the site of the Valera Mite.
It was decided to call him Valery II Valerievich.
The good tape is deactivated.
Welcome to the real world.

On July 22, 1984, vandals again decapitated the statue, but this time the head was returned anonymously and reattached.

The mermaid’s right arm was sawn off and stolen in 1989, later found and reattached by authorities.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the statue was several times doused with paint, including green paint in 1998 and bright red in 2006, typically as a form of protest for animal rights, anti-whaling activism, or other political causes, with perpetrators often unidentified.

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Content: news _ header _ top _ 970 _ 100
Bulat Gilvanov: “Our elite buys paintings somewhere in Monaco ”
“I am disappointed in the idea that culture can be promoted in contact with the national elite.
In order for this trend to change, some tectonic changes must occur, ” says artist Bulat Gilvanov.
He spoke about the lack of Tatar visualization in Kazan, feminism, the Tatar imperial concept and many other things in an interview with Tatar-Inform.
Bulat Gilvanov: “We have a creative potential and a powerful legacy.
But the elites don ’ t know what to do about it. ”
Photo: © Ramil Gali / Tatar-inform
“Even Namdakov quite superficially revealed the topic ”
- Bulat, we would like to talk to you about the Tatar culture through the eyes of a representative of the urban Tatar intelligentsia.
So let ’ s start with specific city stories.
Many Kazan residents and tourists have an opinion that Kazan lacks a Tatar visual.
Do you agree?
And how can this be corrected taking into account, perhaps, the Soviet experience, when various paintings, smalt panels on national themes were popular?
- I agree, such a visualization in Kazan is not enough.
I would like to have a feeling that this is the capital of Tatarstan.
We ourselves declare this, we want to broadcast our national culture as widely as possible both in space and in time, that is, in the future.
In the guise of the Kazan Kremlin, this task was solved, otherwise we see the standard style of modern architecture for many cities.
I don't even know what to call it... post-industrial, I guess.
This, of course, is beautiful and spectacular, I myself like this constructive beginning - glass, graphic lines.
On the facades of sports facilities, shopping malls there is often some interesting decorative solution.
- Do you mean this literalism, when, for example, a tennis racket sticks out from the facade of the Tennis Center?
- Yeah, including that.
That is, there are such things, but I do not remember that there was a national moment in them.
Apparently, there is no understanding that the architectural solution of facades and silhouettes can be revealed with a national bias.
Well, such a task for architects, most likely, is not set.
I do not know who is doing all this, probably Moscow, and until recently European architects.
Perhaps, and therefore, national in these projects is not enough.
- As, say, in the projects of the same Dashi Namdakov.
"Natsmena", but also not a Tatar.
- It's the same story.
Dashi Namdakov is an absolutely wonderful artist, I like him very much, but it can be seen that he did not immerse himself in the topic.
I mean, he does what he does, that's all.
Are you talking about “The Cup ” and the sculptures around it?
- And about the sculpture "Karakuz", installed in Almetyevsk.
It's the theme of the warrior girl that I've been promoting all my life.
This image eventually took a strong place in the national consciousness.
Indeed, there is in the legends such a character - Karakuz, this is an associate of Altynchech.
The sculpture is also beautiful, but again it can be seen that there was no study of the Bulgarian costume - military, national.
Still, I ’ m all for it, she ’ s, again, beautiful, and the topic is right.
However, as you can see, even Namdakov quite superficially revealed the topic.
The cup is the same.
The same dragons and leopards originate from the ancient Turkic animal style, but even this style here, on the Volga, differed from, for example, Siberian.
Was it less aggressive?
- Yes.
Remember the story of Namdakov ’ s “Guardian ”.
Why did it happen?
The sculpture itself is simply gorgeous, but there was an instruction to increase it.
The author increased it, and it became creepy.
Size does matter, though.
The artistic image in a monumental form and in the form of a small statuette is perceived differently.
“I do not see a gap between the Volga Bulgars and modern Tatars ”
- You mentioned the female warriors, and indeed, the appeal to the female image for some reason in the form of valkyrie seemed to have become a common place in the Tatar fine arts.
What does this have to do with it
I often think about it myself.
Is it necessary to promote it, is it not something...
- Artificially?
Not artificial, but harmful.
Just now feminism, which we all once welcomed, is taking on extreme forms, and it can turn into something bad.
Do you want a connotation with feminism?
- No, I wouldn't.
Of course, it is impossible to be against the movement for equality and social equality of the sexes.
But there are physical differences, there are traditions, and they arose for a reason.
They make sense just for the survival of the human race.
- So your warriors - what are they?
Feminine?
- Oh, yeah.
Some even reproach me - she can not, they say, the girl to hold such a weapon, it is unbearable for her.
I just had that task.
At least, I saw these legends through a certain contrast, dissonance: here are warm, fragile girls who are completely unaccustomed to war, and now they are forced to take up cold weapons and stand up for the defense of the Motherland.
The image of sacrifice intensifies, and the feat becomes doubly special.
That is, there is an additional tragedy, an additional conflict.
Let us now turn to your obvious sympathy for the Bulgarian subject.
I noticed that the interest in it, as well as the tendency to identify with the Bulgars, is common among the creative intelligentsia.
Historians have a different opinion.
What do you conditionally answer to a historian who tells you that the Tatars are the heirs not so much of Volga Bulgaria as of other historical periods?
- I have studied this issue and do not see a gap between the Volga Bulgars and modern Tatars.
We speak the same language, we live on the same land, we celebrate the same holidays.
Nardugan, Karga Botkasy, Kaz Omase and Sabantuy are all pre-Islamic Bulgarian holidays, there is no Mongolian component.
In Kul Gali ’ s poem “The Tale of Yusuf ” the same language, some parts of it in the original are even more natural and understandable than the modern literary translation.
Kul Gali wrote before the Mongol conquest in his native language.
Are you sure it ’ s a Bulgarian language?
- Of course.
I don't think the scribes wrote anything in another language.
Some manuscripts indicate that there are two editions of the poem - 1212 and 1233.
Perhaps in 1233, Kul Gali supplemented and processed it.
In any case, he was an eyewitness to six campaigns of the Mongols on Volga Bulgaria until 1236, when it fell.
By the way, I have such an illustration in one of the books.
Here (shows): the author writes that this was composed by the weak servant of God Ghali in such and such a year, in each line he put 22 syllables.
Here is the Bulgarian city, here is Idel, here are the Mongol warriors who are already knocking at the gate.
There is an assumption that Kul Gali died during the Mongol pogrom in Bilar.
Our language has not changed.
As well as our self-consciousness, way of life, basic activities.
The famous historian and archaeologist Alfred Khalikov in private conversations was unequivocally for the Bulgarian version.
“The Russians have a strong association of the Horde with evil, existential threat ”
But these conclusions he voiced in that period, which can be called Tatar historical romanticism and which is long over.
- Yeah, but it's not just Khalikov.
Even at the beginning of the 20th century, when our people were still self-determining, Bulgarism was considered as the main version.
In addition, there is no such potential for confrontation in Bulgarism as in Tatarism.
The Bulgars have been living together with the Russians since the time of Kievan Rus, this state was built and defended by the Slavic and Turkic peoples together.
Berendeys, Kovuys, Torks are all Bulgarian subethnic groups.
Khan Kubrat founded ancient Russian cities, including, according to some sources, and Kiev.
And especially Poltava, where his bet was.
That is, we have coexisted with the Russians throughout their history.
At the same time, the Russians have a strong association of the Horde with evil, an existential threat.
So the Tatar imperial concept is ultimately destructive.
The Russians and I will continue to live together.
The ideologists of Tatarism present bulgarism as an idea that aims at stripping the Tatar people, at its division, but in fact it, if you look at it, has a collective beginning.
I think that the surviving Volga peoples would well accept the Bulgarian idea of   joint existence.
Because, apparently, there was something in the Bulgarian tradition and in the Bulgarian state, which allowed these peoples to survive and live to this day.
– Do you think the Tatars will return to the Bulgarian project?
- I hope so.
It seems to me that our people have yet to make a choice in the future.
– Do you feel that the number of supporters of your concept has increased or decreased over time?
- I think they're getting smaller.
At least in the 1990s, the Bulgarian movement was much more powerful.
All the movements were more powerful.
- Oh, yeah.
If then a referendum on renaming was announced and there was some discussion in the media, thanks to which ordinary citizens would simply think - usually they still live their lives, I do not exclude that they would vote for renaming the TASSR in the Bulgarian Republic.
– When you are called a Tatar artist, it does not cause internal protest?
- No, I am calm about it, maybe even ironic.
I do not lead such a confrontational line as some people in the Bulgarian movement, who rigidly separate themselves from the Tatars and conflict.
“They buy a painting in Monaco for a lot of money to show off at their party ”
A few years ago you said that the art market in Tatarstan is undeveloped.
Has anything changed during this time?
- There are positive aspects, but in general, the trend continues.
There is no stable community in which, say, collectors who know artists work.
Everything happens quite casually.
Paintings are usually bought either on occasion - as a gift, or spontaneously, simply because the thing liked.
There is no such thing as a buyer to study which artists we have and what is worth buying and what is not.
Although it is not difficult to find information now, everything is on the Internet.
It is not necessary to communicate directly with artists, experts or read reference books.
However, this is not the case.
Maybe the Tatarstan elite is interested in our art, understands it?
For the vast majority, probably not.
I am deeply disappointed about this.
Maybe that ’ s why I moved away from exhibitions and projects, from all this movement.
What exactly is the disappointment?
- The idea that culture can be promoted in contact with the national elite.
If something happens to her, it happens as a result.
Roughly speaking, he went somewhere in Monaco, saw something there, he liked it, and he wants the same.
“Do me the same. ”
Or he ’ s lucky right there to show off in his party: here, he took a picture in Monaco, paid a lot of money.
How to change this trend, I don ’ t know.
Apparently, there must be some tectonic changes, something must move in the heads, in public relations.
Because we have creative potential and a powerful legacy, but there is no understanding among the elites of what to do about it and whether there is any benefit in it.
Maybe it just needs to change a generation?
Their children are different, it's a story about a 300-year-old lawn.
- I am not sure, by the way, that if their children studied conditionally in England, they will come with something else in their head.
Well, maybe on rare occasions.
I don't think that's the solution.
I don't know what the solution is.
They should have the understanding that they draw their wealth and power from a national source and that it is a guarantee of the preservation of all this.
But there is no such understanding yet.
So I just stick around and do what I have to do, and whatever happens (laughs).
Let it be unprofitable.
Have businessmen or officials ever bought your paintings?
- Officials do not, and businessmen, although very rarely, bought.
Tatars are a rare case.
Although, in theory, the paintings of our artists can be approached purely utilitarian, decorating their premises and offices.
This is good for business, for the future, and artists will be able to survive and do something else.
There will be a rich field of national culture, it will become denser, better.
At the very top of this understanding, perhaps, there is.
Mintimer Sharipovich is noticeable, if not admiration, then at least respect for art.
Apparently, he somehow sees and feels this beauty, understands its value.
It was the same namdakova he took.
This is either an innate understanding, or it comes from the fact that in Soviet times, art was presented as a really valuable and sublime thing.
“I don ’ t think that the Tatar culture is hermetic ”
Let ’ s move on to the Tatar culture as a whole.
There is an opinion that it is quite hermetic.
- You mean self-obsessed?
Ah, yes.
And that it has no connection with the world cultural context.
Can you say that about painting?
- No.
In general, I do not believe that the Tatar culture is hermetic.
We had a very powerful Jadidic movement that kind of released our culture into the world.
Many even criticize him for this, because such a step, in their opinion, pushed the Tatars to assimilate.
No, our culture, including the visual arts, reacts quickly enough to the global context.
Is there contemporary art in Tatar painting?
Is there any activism there?
- I won ’ t say about actionism, but there is modern art.
There is, for example, Tatar ethno-futurism.
His study, as well as the study of the Tatar avant-garde, was carried out by Yulduz Galimzyanovna Nigmatullina.
She published the book “Late Modernism in Tatar Literature and Fine Arts ”.
This phenomenon is explained there, modern Tatar artists are considered in the context of world art.
But modernism is still late.
What artists are we talking about?
- About modern us, about my acquaintances.
Basically, there is about the Tamga group, which was engaged in the development of the national language.
It consisted of Magyar Khaziyev, Khamza Sharipov, Riyat Mukhametdinov, me.
Kostyak Chelninsky, although there were Ufa artists.
Recently, we do not exhibit, but at one time we actively exhibited and participated in various projects.
All these artists are now alive and well, working outside the group, independently.
In general, we had quite a strong movement at the time.
And there are good, original artists now, including in Kazan.
A bright representative is Ilgizar Khasanov.
A beautiful modern artist, a modernist with a national foundation.
You're friends with Alfrid Shaimardanov, aren't you?
- Yes, at one time and worked in the same workshop, and lived together.
Is it true that artists don ’ t consider him an artist?
That ’ s what he says (laughs).
He is an artist, of course.
When considering his candidacy for the Union of Artists, voted in favor, although there were those who spoke of his "amateur".
Well, he's a real nugget.
It is believed that Bucky Urmanche was very strong as a sculptor, but as a painter he is overrated.
What do you think of that?
- Yes, no, he is a really gorgeous, very versatile artist.
He is recognized both as a classic of the realistic school, and as the creator of an original national language.
And his painting is the most beautiful.
It is painting as such, that is, the interaction of warm and cold colors.
This interaction is like music, it is very difficult to achieve it in painting.
Here is the actual music gets directly into the heart, a person immediately understands it and perceives it, but with painting it is not so.
To achieve music, an artist needs to develop this skill.
“In my youth I thought: I have everything accurately conveyed in the picture, why is there no musicality and beauty? ”
How did it go to you?
- It's very hard.
I finally understood this music quite late.
Even in school I felt that I had a misunderstanding of painting.
I perceived color only as a certain characteristic of the object, as something that needs to be conveyed accurately and realistically.
And the understanding that this is the same “wavelength ” that beats directly into the heart came much later, with practice.
Some people, especially women, get it right away.
We had girls in school who felt painting.
I ’ ve seen them do things differently.
Seems crooked, but beautiful.
And I thought: I have everything accurately conveyed in the picture, why is there no musicality and beauty?
On the subject of female artists.
My daughter entered an art school this year, and as a father, I would like to understand where a young artist can go to work today to feel normal.
I will offer you options, and you will evaluate them.
All right?
The first, the most obvious: to paint paintings and sell them yourself at online auctions.
- Yes, an option.
The second is to offer your services in the cinema as a production designer.
- In principle, the cinema is now being filmed in Tatarstan.
I myself recently called from Tatarkino, offered to participate in their project this autumn.
But I apologized and refused – I did not have time.
I was involved in several film projects and it was interesting.
So that ’ s also an option.
The only thing is, we don ’ t have a lot of movies.
But it is a specific thing.
But you can go to Moscow and get involved in the work, for example, as a decorator, learn all this cuisine and only then pretend to be a production designer.
Or start as a costume designer.
- Yeah, that's it.
There are a lot of theatres in Kazan.
Another option is to draw manga.
Can we monetize it somehow?
- I think so.
Publish in the form of books or monetize via the Internet.
I guess it's possible.
And the last option is to paint urban objects, including private ones.
- Of course.
Listen to you, it turns out like a chocolate story.
I mean, the young artist is all right with perspective, right?
- Yes.
There are other options.
You can do animation.
Maybe there will be something related to the Internet.
However, there is a question with artificial intelligence, those who are engaged in it can take out design orders.
But, I think, only purely utilitarian.
No artificial intelligence can illustrate a book as thoughtfully, artistically, and beautifully as a human being.
To do this, you need to live your human life, use the human experience, your sense of the culture to which the writer belongs.
A relative of mine recently told me about artificial intelligence and said that soon I will be out of work.
I was scared at first, and then I thought and realized that he should think about it.
Because writing programs and applications to artificial intelligence is much easier.
Gilvanov Bulat Alfirovich is an artist, a member of the Union of Artists of Russia.
Born in 1972 in Elabuga.
He graduated from the art department of the Naberezhnye Chelny School of Arts, the graphic faculty of the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I.E.Repin.
Laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan named after M. Jalil.
In 1999 – 2001 – teacher of the Department of Fine Arts of Naberezhnye Chelny State Pedagogical Institute, in 2001 – 2005 – artist-trainee of the creative workshop of the Russian Academy of Arts in Kazan.
In 2011 – 2014 – lecturer at the Kazan branch of the Moscow State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after V.I. Surikov, in 2012 – 2018 – assistant at the creative workshop of painting of the Russian Academy of Arts in Kazan.
Since 2018, he has been a freelance artist.
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In September 2003, the statue was blown off its base by explosives set by unknown individuals, requiring significant restoration.

In 2017, vandals used red paint to write “Danmark defend the whales of the Faroe Islands” at the base of the sculpture, referencing whaling practices, but no suspects were arrested.

In May 2020, the words “racist fish” were sprayed onto the rock the statue sits on as part of the international Black Lives Matter protests, again by unknown vandals.

Other less severe incidents have included the placing of clothing or accessories on the statue as a protest, causing no physical damage.

All incidents have typically prompted swift restoration and heightened security, but very few perpetrators have been identified or prosecuted.

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, created by artist Edvard Eriksen in 1913, has experienced several instances of repeated and intentional vandalism over the decades.

Title:

Content: Exclusive Conversation
Just Stop the Oil: We need real action, not climate conferences and people ’ s lives more important than art
Since the beginning of October, Britain and European countries have witnessed incidents caused by environmental activists, especially from the organization Just Stop Oil, or "Just Stop Oil", which affected museums, exhibitions and public and tourism facilities, in a move that the implementers said was aimed at raising awareness of the climate crisis, but drew criticism from artistic and official circles, which considered acts of "sabotage" warning of their adverse effects.
To highlight this issue, we interviewed Alex de Koning, spokesperson for the organization.
Announcement
Environmental and climate activists, especially members of Just Stop the Oil, have launched a series of incidents since early October across several European countries, targeting famous historical artifacts on display in museums, as well as tourist sites and public facilities, to warn of climate risks ahead of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on November 6-18, with the participation of more than 30,000 delegates, including representatives from nearly 200 countries.
“Just stop the oil. ”
Who is she?
Just Stop Oil is a coalition of several environmental groups whose goal is to ensure that the UK government is committed to ending all new licences and approvals for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels.
She considers that “civil resistance is a powerful means of non-violent demands for rights, freedom and justice ” and argues that“ when people wage nonviolent civil resistance, they use tactics such as strikes, boycotts, mass protests, and disruption. ”
The organisation drew particular attention on the morning of October 17 after two of its members, Morgan Trolland, 39, and Marcus Decker, 33, climbed the Dartford Bridge on the highway over the River Thames near London, causing major traffic jams.
The move came after other activists threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh ’ s famous “Sunflower ” painting on display at the National Gallery in the British capital.
Coinciding with a series of near-daily incidents in Britain, a young woman from the organization tried on Sunday to throw soup at a painting on display at Paris ’ famous Musée d ’ Orsay.
The museum, which houses the works of some of the most famous European artists such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Manet, and Claude Monet, declined to name the painting targeted.
In The Hague in the west of the Netherlands, the museum "Morichuis" on Thursday saw a similar incident targeting the painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer, by activists of the same organization who stuck their hands on the wall before spraying a tomato sauce on it, causing minor damage to the frame of the painting, the museum said.
At the Berlin Museum of Natural History, two activists from the Last Generation movement glued themselves on Sunday to one of the barriers surrounding a dinosaur on display, urging the government to step up its action against climate change.
Officials Criticize "Sabotage Acts"
Commenting on the series of incidents, Bernard Pléstan, Honorary President of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, said: “All museum officials have long taken measures against acts of vandalism.
Should it be strengthened?
certainly ".
French Culture Minister Rima Abdelmalik told Le Parisien: “This is terrible!
How can the logic of climate advocacy lead to the destruction of a work of art?
This is totally absurd. "
She noted that her country "is not immune to some activist who is illogical to the painting."
German Chancellor Olaf Schulz on Monday sharply criticized environmental activists for targeting famous works of art.
Schultz said: “I am very saddened by what is happening and I am very happy that it has not reached the point where an irreplaceable work of art is permanently damaged.
For his part, the director of the Barberini Museum in the German city of Bostdam, Ortrade Wistehader, said the incidents showed that "high international standards for the protection of works of art are no longer enough", after an incident on Sunday.
Didier Rickner, director and founder of the online art magazine La Tribune du Laag, said these works were "counterproductive".
To understand the demands of these environmental activists and why they launched this series of incidents, we asked Alex De Koning, a spokesman for Just Stop the Oil, who is also a PhD student in hydrogen production at Newcastle University.
Why did you decide to launch that particular series of incidents now?
At Just Stop the Oil, we know that we now live on a new planet, which is no longer the same as in the past, which may indicate extreme weather forecasts for the future, all while our government seeks to develop new sources of oil and gas, and these endeavors are tantamount to treason and harmful action.
That is why we will not stand idly by and let this happen.
Why do we have to wait any longer?
Thousands of people will die this winter from the cold as their homes do not have heat insulation to protect them.
Their energy bills are criminally high, although this can be easily avoided.
We can't wait.
Do you coordinate with other environmental organizations or climate activists?
Just Stop the Oil is a coalition of individuals and groups who decided to come together under the same slogan and demand to stop the exploitation of oil and gas.
We are among the coalitions of climate activists and our organization forming a network spread across 22 different countries, all using similar tactics to raise demands for change but better and more effectively than before.
Don ’ t you think that targeting works of art can damage your organization ’ s reputation?
We can ’ t know for sure, but we ’ ve seen support for our organization grow since the series of events we ’ ve organized since October 1, and we see it continue to grow.
For anyone who is angry at the fact that we targeted something as precious and innocent as artwork, why aren ’ t they outraged after 33 million people in Pakistan lost their homes to the recent floods?
Then why is it that two people throwing soup on a certain board prompted more people to talk about the climate crisis?
What is most precious to you?
Art or life?
Do you have any sympathy for your protest movement?
A recent survey in the UK found that 66% of the population supported action to protect the environment and climate.
Do you plan to launch similar incidents during the COP27 climate summit in Egypt?
Just Stop the Oil will continue to exercise civil resistance against our mischievous government until it starts working to protect us.
The COP27 summit kicks off in a week, but we have to remember that during the COP26 summit, oil and gas were not even mentioned in the final agreement.
We need to act in accordance with this emergency.
We need action, not conferences.
What about the prosecutions against your activists, especially after the Dartford Bridge incident?
Seven supporters of Just Stop the Oil are currently in jail for their involvement in peaceful civil resistance activities, as fossil fuel companies continue to make staggering profits, impoverishing millions of families and destroying the livelihoods of tens of millions of people in the global South.
What is the significance of the orange color for your organization?
Why did we choose orange?
Simply because it works, it succeeds in everything.
Orange is a combination of red and yellow, that is, it combines the first passion with the last hope.
Amin Zarrouati
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The first major incident occurred in 1964 when the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists led by Jørgen Nash, and the head was never recovered, requiring a replacement to be made.

Title:

Content: Dear reader, if you are walking in your car, then you find “bandits ” who stood in front of you, slept in front of the wheels and prevented you and prevented people from passing, or if you are in a museum and surprised by a group of people destroying and breaking art paintings or painting the exhibits in orange...
Don't think you're in front of an armed terrorist group.
These people are often “environmental activists. ”
Environmental activists seek to make a positive impact on the planet and the environment, but not through planting trees, but through the easiest way to balance from their point of view: to subvert art, paint and destroy monuments and artifacts and disrupt the movement of people in the streets, in order to balance the economy and the environment.
This may sound crazy dear reader, and remind you of the story of the sieve who criticized a needle because it has a hole!
But this is the view presented in the market of environmental struggle...
Either you accept it or you are not deep enough!
When art becomes a victim of the green struggle, there is no doubt that we are faced with a dilemma similar to the dilemma of having a preacher on a beach, wearing a green shorts, to preach to the redhead blonde with the red bikini...
Either way, you are faced with a mystery of modern civilization.
The article would have stopped here, but I finally got to know a critical school of fiction and art that not only analyzes texts, words and drawings, but evaluates works of art based on their environmental impact, meaning that a painting painted by your favorite artist may be guilty of polluting the environment, and you, him and the museum should be held accountable for that.
As environmental criticism intensifies, environmental literary critics emerge — as if the morgue is missing bodies — and many wonder if art and environmental criticism can coexist peacefully.
Can we find a way to make art more sustainable and environmental without the need for subversive works?
In the end, the aim of this article is not to make environmental criticism a mockery, but to question the actual solutions to environmental problems, rather than to direct efforts towards art subversion.
Is this the right path to change?
Or does environmental criticism need to rethink its strategies?
Environmental criticism may have come up with a noble idea, but the way it is applied is so controversial and ironic, we can use art as a means to spread environmental awareness and promote sustainability.
Ultimately, art and environmental criticism must coexist peacefully, as both seek a better and more sustainable future.
Anything that does not mention God ’ s name.
Amputation.
A short story:
Why did you steal the painting from the museum?
Preserving the environment, sir.
Preserving the environment...
How? How?
Thief: It has artificial colors that pollute the environment, and its stools are cut from a tree that was cut last month...
I wanted to send a message to the world that art that does not respect the environment must be removed.
Officer: Greetings to your brain Balanat, O Sea of Science, O Sea of Concept, O Philosopher of Donkeys!
@ moh1alatwn @

In 1984, the statue was again targeted and decapitated by unknown vandals; this time, the head was returned anonymously and reattached.

In 1990, vandals sawed off the right arm of the statue, which was also returned shortly afterwards.

On several occasions the statue has been doused with paint: in 1961, in 1984, and again in 1998, red and other colored paints were splashed on the sculpture, mostly as acts of protest or random vandalism by unknown perpetrators.

In 1998, the Little Mermaid was blown off her granite base with explosives, which resulted in the statue being knocked into the harbor, but it was later recovered and restored.

On March 8, 2003, the statue was again toppled into the water in an apparent protest coinciding with International Women’s Day, and authorities retrieved and reinstated it.

Acts of vandalism have more recently involved the statue being draped in clothing or objects as political statements and graffiti being painted on her rock.

For example, in May 2017, the words “Free Hong Kong” were spray-painted on the rock, and in June 2020, the phrase “Racist Fish” appeared as part of anti-racism protests, though the individuals responsible were not identified.

Despite repeated repairs and restorations, the statue remains one of the most iconic landmarks in Denmark and continues to be a target for acts of political protest, artistic rebellion, and random vandalism.

The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has been the target of repeated acts of vandalism since its unveiling in 1913.

Title:

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The race has changed?
French literary giant Hugo statue is too dark, protesters are angry with white paint
The statue of Hugo, the French literary giant, has been restored with a darker complexion. (Image from Ville de Besançon Facebook)
2023 / 01 / 02 17: 13
Hugo (1802-1885), the French literary giant who wrote the world-famous works "The Clock Tower Monster" and "Les Miserables", his hometown Besançon has placed his statue in front of the city hall since 2003. Paint.
The New York Times reported that Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow, who helped make the Hugo statue for the city of Besançon, faded the paint on the bronze over time, and since Sow died in 2016, the mayor of Besançon has recently hired a specialist to repair it.
However, the city of Besançon announced the results of the restoration on Facebook, and claimed that it is quite consistent with Sow's original work, from which it can be seen that the face of the Hugo statue has turned dark brown, which attracted a lot of online discussion, some people are positive about Hugo's "skin color" darkening, but others are angry that it is film star Morgan Freeman rather than Hugo.
Sow's widow said that the Hugo statue did appear to be black, and that this was not the original intention of Sow's creation, which immediately sparked another wave of controversy on social networks, and she later thought that she was too casual to make the topic again.
Shortly after the public restoration of the statue in Besançon, protesters took advantage of the night to spray white paint on the statue, and police tracked down and arrested two university students involved, who were members of a far-right student group.
Besançon prosecutors accused the two of racially motivated destruction of public property, and the two students admitted the destruction, but did not agree that it was racist, and the final result was to be decided by the court.
Protesters are deeply dissatisfied and spray white paint. (Image from Ville de Besançon Facebook)
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In 1964, the statue’s head was sawn off and stolen by politically motivated artists, and although the head was never recovered, a new one was cast and attached.

Title:

Content: Free Republic, Huang Xu / Symbol of Conquered? Bronze Statue of Chung Cheng Memorial Hall
The park will remove Chiang Kai-shek ’ s bronze statue and change the axis of the park ’ s space in order to reconstruct the memorial narrative, but does it have to be removed to reconstruct the narrative?
Huang Xu / Exhibition Researcher at HKUST
The park will remove Chiang Kai-shek ’ s bronze statue and change the axis of the park ’ s space in order to reconstruct the memorial narrative, but does it have to be removed to reconstruct the narrative?
Those who grew up with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall over the past 40 years have no shortage of memories of the removal of the bronze statue.
From universities, parks, government agencies to the military, the bronze statue in the trend of democratization of Taiwan, one by one from the public space. The symbol of the bronze statue, at that time, also played the function of ruling society, collective education and domestication in the campus and the military; its frontiersmen risked danger, in the authoritarian political rigidity and death, the old totem actually carried out questionable destruction, it has the meaning of resistance to break the idol. And...
However, does the bronze statue sitting in the memorial still maintain the same social function in the era of authoritarianism?
In the square in front of the memorial hall, people gathered to support the protest cloth; tourists freely shuttled to watch the wonders of the handover of guards; children chasing and playing; lovers walking after the end of the opera... For these people, the bronze statue and the symbol of the axis obviously cannot make them worship the powerful and the authoritative.
The same image, its symbols may have different social functions at different times.
Feeling the symbol of authority does not mean obeying and believing in authority.
But today, there is no guarantee that tomorrow will remain; the specter of authoritarianism always hovers over human society, waiting for an opportunity to resurrect, history has appeared, the future does not guarantee that there is no.
So, can removing the bronze statue prevent the ghost from coming back?
Renowned sociologist Bruno Latour curated an exhibition “Iconoclash ” in Germany, reflecting on human“ Iconoclasm. ”
One of the reasons that Latus does not believe and does not believe in the need to destroy the removal of the image is that in destroying the image, it is likely that the image will be "freeze-framing", and it will be removed from the historical movement of reproduction, and become a static, deactivated, and a symbol of conquest.
At different times, the same acts of vandalism may change from “resistance ” to the meaning of“ conquest ”; if accompanied by the cries of idolatricians, it is no different from the spectacle of the tyranny of the truth that is fickle.
It is worth pondering, can we break away from the monopoly of the authoritarian ghost by destroying the statue? The destruction of the giant Buddha statue increases the religious conflict and does not destroy Buddhism. Removing the bronze statue may also increase social contradictions in vain and do nothing to prevent authoritarian politics.
Prevention of authoritarianism must begin with understanding what authoritarianism is, rather than transforming authoritarianism into an image and publicly expelling it, forming the illusion that authoritarianism seems never to come again.
The spatial layout and objects of the Zhongzheng Memorial Hall garden form a group of powerful statues, which concretize the abstract political system, and describe the strong politics of the past and the great power landscape.
Refusing to categorize this group of images, you can link it with other images, objects, films, paintings, etc., and place it in a dynamic society and flow of time, such as through it to see Taiwan ’ s political participants during the Japanese rule, and then to see Taiwan ’ s democratic politics creeping forward.
Through the authoritarian symbol of the image, the image of political dissidents standing on the streets can be more enlightening, and the figure of political victims can be more memorable, so the democratic system and freedom of speech are more cherished.
In other words, this set of spaces and objects has the ability to show connections, which can help us to have a deeper understanding and reflection on the history and the present.
Without authoritarianism, we cannot understand the hardships of Taiwan ’ s democracy. Its symbol should not be seen as a buried past, but as a reference that must be returned at all times.
A history that must be vigilant is not equivalent to a text that covers the coffin.
Using the authoritative symbols of this set of images as a medium is an eternal work of building relationships between images, a continuous process of connection and production from the images to other images.
Only in this way will the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Park become a public space for safeguarding democracy, rather than another place to commemorate its great achievements.
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In 1984, vandals again decapitated the statue by sawing off its head, which was later returned anonymously to a nearby television station and reattached.

In 1989, the statue's right arm was sawn off and stolen by two young men, only to be returned undamaged after a nationwide appeal.

On several occasions, the statue has been daubed with paint, notably in 1961, 1963, 1967, 2007, 2017, and 2020, often as acts of protest or in relation to political causes.

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"Attack" escalates environmental protester tomato juice Van Gogh "sunflower"
Two British environmentalists on Wednesday poured canned tomato juice on Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh ’ s famous painting “Sunflowers ” at the National Gallery in London to protest against fossil fuel extraction.
As the painting is covered with glass, only the gold-plated frame is slightly damaged, and the painting itself is not damaged.
London Metropolitan Police have arrested the two female protesters on suspicion of criminal damage and aggravated trespass.
This is the latest in a series of climate protests in recent months against famous paintings in museums around the world, which have drawn media attention and criticism from environmental groups for their radical actions.
Two protesters who poured tomato juice on Van Gogh ’ s “Sunflower ” painting from Just Stop Oil put their hands on the wall of the museum, and one of them shouted,“ Which is more valuable for art or life?
Another group of protesters later gathered in front of the police headquarters and sprayed yellow paint on the New Scotland Yard sign; several people stuck themselves on the road to block traffic.
Police said 24 people were arrested.
In July, Stop Oil, which opposes the British government ’ s approval of new oil and gas projects, also spray-painted and glued their hands to a frame under Leonardo ’ s early copy of The Last Supper at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the same week they went to the National Gallery and glued their hands to the British painter John Constable ’ s The Hay. Wain) on the frame.
At the time, a series of protests lasted for two weeks, and protesters blocked London bridges and crossroads.
That same month, members of the Italian climate group Ultima Generazione glued their hands to Sandro Botticelli ’ s “Primavera ” with protective glass at the Uffizi museum in Florence.
Dana Fisher, a social scientist at the University of Maryland who studies the protest movement, called these “neo-radical ” environmental activists“ disruptors ”; she noted that they were constantly “winning by surprise ” in order to get media attention; the“ tomato juice ” was clearly a “tactical upgrade, ” and they also seemed to deliberately choose glass-covered paintings to“ do it ” in order to minimize damage.
Fisher said that previously noticed marches or sit-ins were quickly ignored after the media became accustomed to certain types of radical actions; previously, climate protesters had caused a small sensation by gluing themselves to art, but now the focus on such actions has cooled, and protesters have turned to defacing the appearance of art to gain attention.
Van Gogh ’ s famous painting “Pouring Tomato Juice ” did make headlines in British and European newspapers on the 14th, and a YouTube video of the incident was viewed 13.3 million times that afternoon.
But protesters also risk “escalating ” their tactics, and many of those who originally sympathized with them may feel offended or even cold.
"Research shows that this strategy does not change the mind or the mind," Fisher noted.
Preventing commuters from commuting to work or harming irreplaceable works of art may cause people to be reluctant to face the climate movement for at least some time.
Fisher asked, “The action was compelling, but did it really achieve its purpose? ”
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In 1998, the statue was blown off its stone base using explosives, with the lower part of its body being discovered in the harbor and the statue subsequently restored.

In 2003, the statue was draped in a burqa and a Danish flag was painted nearby, believed to be a protest against Turkey’s application to join the European Union.

In 2017, the statue was painted red as a protest against whaling by the Faroe Islands.

In 2020, the words “racist fish” were found spray-painted on the base of the statue, apparently referencing contemporary debates around racism.

The vandalism episodes often coincide with wider social or political events, with perpetrators using the statue’s iconic status to draw attention to their causes.

Between incidents, the statue is repeatedly restored by city authorities, yet its symbolism as both a national icon and a target for dissent persists.