[wptpa id=”18″]<\/p>\n
Since 2000, French artist \u00c9ric Watier has been crafting an inventory of destruction, collecting art works generally destroyed at the hands of their authors. The book, Tout l\u2019inventaire des destructions<\/em> (An entire inventory of destruction<\/em>), was published in 20181<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n The book compiles 200 cases, such as:<\/p>\n In 1861, Paul C\u00e9zanne writes to \u00c9mile Zola: \u201cI just destroyed your portrait. I wanted to retouch it this morning and as it simply got worse and worse, I annihilated it.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1888, an extremely discouraged Auguste Renoir destroys a large quantity of his paintings. He claims they are too dry.<\/p>\n In 1906, before leaving Kursk, Kasimir Malevitch sets his realist paintings and romantic landscapes on fire.<\/p>\n Nothing remains from what Barnett Newman painted in 1931, the year he shared his studio with Adolph Gottlieb.<\/p>\n \u201cThe inventory idea came to me suddenly while giving a lecture at the Sorbonne as part of Anne M\u0153glin-Delcroix\u2019s seminar in 1999,\u201d says Watier in an interview2<\/a><\/sup>. \u201cI don\u2019t really remember what the lecture was about,\u201d he continues, \u201cprobably to give an overview of artistic practices in giving. So I brought up some examples: Fluxus,\u201d known for their taste in very open practices, \u201cor even Potlatch\u00a0magazine,\u201d which editors sent free of charge to hand-picked addresses or to those few people who expressed interest in receiving it.<\/p>\n \u201cI ended the conference with a reading from \u2018Giving is Giving\u2019, a list of donations made by artists. That\u2019s when a student asked if artists who give also destroy. The answer was clear: I would simply have to ask them myself.\u201d And thus was born The Inventory of Destruction<\/em>.<\/p>\n But how is destruction a subtraction, and why is that interesting for our chronicle?<\/p>\n The Inventory of Destruction<\/em> consists of holes made in Art History.<\/p>\n History is made of landmarks. But in the case of The Inventory of Destruction<\/em>, these references are absences, artworks gone forever\u2014but that the Inventory recalls in our memories through language. The Inventory<\/em> is Art History made through subtraction.<\/p>\n More generally, what can destruction actually offer to art? Isn\u2019t creation the opposite of destruction? The issue is more complicated than it seems and lately, destruction in art is discussed at length. It is the topic of seminars and conferences. It also drives the content of numerous articles that remind us how \u201cthe world is fragile\u201d, \u201cnew worlds will grow out of our ruins3<\/a><\/sup>\u201d, or better yet, \u201cwaste is a topic in society, extremely complex, that permeates and draws on many scientific disciplines. 4<\/a><\/sup>\u201d<\/p>\n In art, destruction has never been trendier: just look at all the noise surrounding the destruction of British street artist, painter and filmmaker Banksy\u2019s piece at the Sotheby auction house just after it had been acquired for over one million Euros, and you\u2019ll get a glimpse at how the notion of destruction, far from refuting our economic mode of operation, is tethered to the core of a consumerist society \u201cthat tends toward the full, accumulation and constant growt5<\/a><\/sup>\u201d. One New York Times journalist examined Banksy\u2019s action and observed the following: \u201cWhat is clear is that we\u2019ve now reached a point in which destroying a work can at the very least dredge up decent publicity on behalf of the destroyer, and maybe even produce a desirable object to own.6<\/a><\/sup>\u201d<\/p>\n In 1966, English artist Gustav Metzger saw what he called \u201cAuto-Destructive Art\u201d as having liberating potential. Things being considerably less romantic today, Watier sees an artist\u2019s willful act of destruction as a useful and sometimes necessary gesture. There are valid reasons for abolishing certain artworks: Sometimes circumstance forces your hand, or a certain amount of bad luck comes into play. But in every case, an artwork\u2019s disappearance deserves the kind of attention, and cold methodical dedication, that is fundamental to The Inventory of Destruction<\/em>. An effort made even more admirable through Watier\u2019s insistence on excluding anything that might make it more seductive or spectacular, for example photos. That was precisely the point: the Inventory ventures into a long-defended field of creation, as Watier tells us with every page, indirectly and thanks to his collected stories, that is simply open and already shared by all, without putting anyone in danger. Destruction with a small \u2018d\u2019. Nothing more than the creative act at work, seen from another angle. Just as one might agree that there is no such thing as the purely immaterial, rather smaller and larger degrees of materiality, one can suggest that destruction is the smallest degree of creation\u2014or perhaps an unexpected way of creating.<\/p>\n To conclude this chronicle, let\u2019s look at another question: Why destroy when we can choose not to consume, or at least hardly? Or produce nothing at all? When we can choose to remove ourselves from \u201calways making new\u201d? From this angle, destruction might seem outdated\u2014we often destroy things we believe exist in unlimited quantity. The old economy. Right now there are many projects conceived as alternatives to this being implemented throughout the world. For the chronicle it certainly isn\u2019t uninteresting to pit artworks against one another. For example, the Zero Waste organization in France has a \u201cNothing New\u201d campaign for 2019: \u201cTo limit as many new purchases as possible for one year and use alternatives instead: renting, leasing, second-hand, repairing or sharing. The \u2018Nothing New\u2019 challenge applies to everyday products and goods aside from food and hygiene: clothing, furniture, appliances, decoration, tech, books, etc.\u2026 In exceptional cases, participants are the judge of their purchases.\u201d<\/p>\n A shame the challenge doesn\u2019t apply to art works as well. It could, in 2019, call for no new artworks and simply managing everything that already exists on the market. The idea is nothing new, but it has never truly been put into practice by artists. A strike? Why not?<\/p>\n In economics we often talk about ethical products. Ones that try to limit our environmental impact. Would it be possible to say the same about ethical artworks? In which way, and how? For us it is unthinkable, as art and morality should never, ever<\/em>, get into bed together. Ethical art is stillborn art.<\/p>\n THIS WAS: Making holes in Art History as subtraction. <\/strong><\/p>\n Translation by Maya Dalinsky<\/strong><\/p>\n Cover: \u00a9 Ana\u00efs Enjalbert<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [wptpa id=”18″] Since 2000, French artist \u00c9ric Watier has been crafting an inventory of destruction, collecting art works generally destroyed at the hands of their authors. 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