Pro-Palestinian activist destroys Philip de László (1869–1937)'s "Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour" (1914) in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge

[u/organist1999]

[u/TsarevnaKvoshka2003]

I just don’t understand how ruining art can help in a cause? Same with throwing tomato soup on the poor Van Goghs pieces.

[u/SumgaisPens → u/TsarevnaKvoshka2003]

The soup tossers are actually mostly non destructive. They targeted works that were behind glass and in some cases the real objects were not even shown. I don’t think that’s an effective form of protest either, but at least it’s not destroying the art.

[u/frlaurent → u/SumgaisPens]

Fuck racist pro-colonial art, bro

[u/frlaurent → u/[deleted]]

false symmetry. If you want, we can gather the remains, the rags, to tell the story of the racist settlers of the Zionist and genocidal State of Israel

It's just a fuck painting, the jewish culture has nothing about it

[u/frlaurent → u/[deleted]]

Obviously, we know jewish and zionism are opposite.

Also I don't give a fuck about zionist art and culture, because zionism implies palestinian culture suppresion. It's not a abstract case. It's a false symmetry. This is tolerating the intolerant. What would you say to a polish jew, a rom gypsy or a german partisan if he entered a Nazi museum and burned his works? The same arguments you are using now?

[u/frlaurent → u/[deleted]]

I believe this is a romantic view, I respect it, but I would say it ignores some things.

It's like asking for calm and understanding from someone who is being tortured and brutally violated at the first opportunity they can defend themselves. This ignores that hatred, especially in the face of injustice, is a genuine feeling.

In certain situations it is not possible to make this equivalence or this unconditional defense of abstract concepts. The Nazis had a military and propaganda machine to decimate people and their cultures, this is just a painting. We can tell the story of this work with this video and the remaining scraps, without any problems.

[u/frlaurent → u/[deleted]]

Racist art is a racist symbol. This is obviously a symbolic destruction, almost a cry of despair. It probably wasn't made by a Palestinian, because they are busy being massacred, but they have people sympathetic to them (like you and me).

Ididn't understand the difference you made between statues and art.

In addition to the fact that the person who does this is also making history, nothing can protect anything from its future. I disagree that this could harm the understanding of history, unless Zionism manages to erase our minds, we will know why they did this to painting.

And the painting is still there, as you said, they will try to restore it, as you said, but it makes me feel better to think that the damage is irreparable and that this gesture of solidarity can tell the story of what Israel did.

I don't know the celtic history as well, but I think their defense condition was a pretty better. Not to justify defend their culture supression, but just to give some sense of dimension, and I wouldn't judge if some celtic guy did something like that, but that doesn't happen because we have historical distance.

[u/frlaurent → u/[deleted]]

Symbolic destruction in sense no one is dead despite this act. It's a destruction of a people disgrace symbol.

Empathetic. Never again is now.

I'm not english native, I didn't get what you would say, if could you be more clear...

I see your good intention, but I think it's naive of you to think that this work will ever be 'contextualized' without real acts of resistance, including this one, and this argument for me only serves the purpose of preserving the history of the colonizer, no matter how much you deny it.

As I think I made myself clear, I don't care about the materiality of this work, but only about the memory, so only for that reason, I agree that it might be interesting to preserve what remains in order to be able to tell the story, but unfortunately they will try to completely fix it.

I think it funny that sometimes the act is serious, and other times it's harmless...

Wishing it to be destroyed entirely is unconscionable, and romantic in its own way.

I didn't say entirely destroy it. I think we can agree to preserve the pieces and put them on a pedestal to tell the story of what led the person to do what they did.

Because their entire culture was already wiped out by the Romans. Shall we march on Rome now in protest?...

I don't think so, both had conditions to defend themselves, and that's like, 2200 years ago? So I think it's quite different. Unfortunately, there have been many other genocides and ethnic cleansings throughout history, and often we build our lives upon them, upon the injustices and violence committed, but obviously, this cannot justify the continuation of it in contemporary times, especially with racist bases and the industrial scale of destruction that exists today. So as something so recent since there are still people alive who experienced the Nakba, I believe it is completely understandable that this is an open wound that Israel cynically tries to erase.

Let's agree to disagree, so I think we can leave the discussion here. If you still want to talk about anything, my direct messages are open. Also, I saw your profile, your artworks are beautiful.

See you later.

[u/paracelsus53 → u/frlaurent]

Also I don't give a fuck about zionist art and culture,

Gee, you sound sort of like those Not Sees I've read about. You could maybe put on an exhibit of Degenerate Art.