Destruction in Art
In order to create anything, we have to destroy something.
I am currently reading KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck and in a dialogue between Katharina and Hans on page 44 they say:
"odd, really, the anthem of a Socialist country starting with the most Christian word there is: Resurrected, he says, more to himself than to her
I don't think it's odd, she replies, It's just the way it is. You can only make something new after some thoroughgoing destruction."
And the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin said
“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.”
and this one you problably remember from school:
“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed" by Antoine Lavoisier
So today we are talking about how humans and life but mostly art needs destruction - because thats is the shadow of creation. So if you are an artist, a creative person or have been feeling this urge of change, to end, to destroy - which is the same urge to create something new and make a revolution and make things.
There is an art movement called auto destructive art pioneered by Gustav Metzger, who was a german that fled to Englad when he was 12 because of nazism.
Schon früh mit der mörderischen Gewalt von Menschen konfrontiert, war es für Gustav Metzger existenziell, auf die konsequente Zerstörung der Natur aufmerksam zu machen und für deren Erhalt wie Respekt zu kämpfen. Inmitten des atomaren Wettrüstens schrieb er Manifeste zur Autodestruktiven Kunst – einer Kunst, die auf die eigene Zerstörung angelegt war.
https://www.mmk.art/de/whats-on/gustav-metzger
Growing up in a cruel world and wanting to make a change maybe will ask us artist the same urge he had to create with all of this destruction. He also said:
„Ich habe nichts zu sagen und das ist Politik.“ Gustav Metzger
Part from this movement and other destructive movements in art we also have artists like Yoko Ono, Raphael Montañez Ortiz - who is destroying pianos in his performances or Cornelia Parker - and here to quote this article - her
"art is about destruction, resurrection and reconfiguration. Demonstrating the importance of process, she frequently transforms objects by using seemingly violent techniques such as shooting, exploding, squashing, cutting and burning. Through these actions she both physically alters the object and she herself becomes an active participant in the development of its story”
Both the creation and the destruction ask from us artists and from the public to be more active and to participate in what is being created or destroyed.
I recently talked about anger in my therapy, and I ended up buying this anti-stress ball for myself. I'm sharing this because it's easier to see destruction and creation in objects like this one, like ceramics, paintings, books, museums, architecture, movies, but it is harder to feel and see them when you are imagining, thinking, writing words, or performing something.
After using this ball, I feel more present and creative, allowing the energy of this rage to flow through my body. Sometimes it's small stress, but sometimes we carry huge feelings and Weltschmerz – to use another German word that means 'world-weariness' or 'the pain of the world' – which feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders. As an artist, I want to be able to express this through my art at some point. So, we do have to channel this anger, or even the stress.
But we artists are not honoring this process enough. As humans, we don't allow rage and frustration to manifest publicly, and as a society, we are facing wars and never knowing how to end them. We are afraid to stop projects and afraid to start new ones. We hate how things are and do nothing to change them. So, between these fears of making mistakes, of deleting, and the suppressed urge to crash or vanish, we end up creating nothing.
Abaporu, de Tarsila do Amaral.
Abaporu - "homem que come" (the man who eats), in Tupi-Guarani, the most widely spoken indigenous language in Brazil before Portuguese colonization. This painting by Tarsila do Amaral is inspired by Oswald de Andrade who wrote the "Manifesto Antropófago." This was a movement that aimed to create something original to Brazil by absorbing and transforming many influences that we had in Brazil, from Portuguese and European to African, Japanese, and indigenous cultures.
O movimento, em si, buscava valorizar a identidade nacional em diálogo com o mundo, promovendo uma nova forma de lidar com a cultura estrangeira.
It's something like cultural cannibalism: eating and drinking from other cultures, mixing them to make our own, given that Brazil is a mix. I honestly prefer this idea to the idea of "steal like an artist."
And now I am an immigrant myself, once again not quite belonging, because even in my own country, I've always been a combination of so much.
As an immigrant living here in Berlin for 3 years, it's important for me to continue to learn about the culture and history, two things that keep changing all the time, because they are made by human beings, and we change all the time and over time.
This just made me realize that they don't know what it means to be a German either. They are destroying and recreating what culture is here, just as everywhere else in the world.
I still remember one day, around 6 years ago, I was on my Strassenbahn (tram) going to Alexanderplatz, and die Bahn fällt aus (the tram broke down) because they were defusing a bomb along the route.
I am telling all this because, for all these reasons, living here helped me to honor destruction. To be aware of it, to be shocked by it. To realize that this building was already something else before. That so much pain and destruction already happened here, and yet they have built something else; they created a new history – which, by the way, will also require destruction and rebuilding again.
So...
Where is the destruction in my creation?
I was listening to a podcast with Emma Stone, called "The Envelope." There, she talks about her character Bella from Poor Things and how the challenge was to deconstruct her, because this character is reborn and has no history, no shame, no morals. That was an Oscar-winning performance – that was creative and original because she let go, she destroyed and emptied herself, and incorporated the destruction into the creative process. They were aware that creativity needs not just new ideas, research, and accumulation, but actually an empty space.
Peter Brook was a director who came up with this concept, not me. In the empty space, we improvise, and the magic happens. Or when we get bored on a Sunday afternoon. Or the amazing ideas we have on a walk, or on an airplane without internet.
But I will not dwell in emptiness, because I guess that's the misunderstanding. Before we reach a meditative state, or this boredom, or this empty space which is so important for creativity to thrive – we have to remember that nothing is created or lost, everything is transformed.
In order to create the empty space in my theater lesson, the teacher had to destroy the crowd, to destroy the noise in order to make silence.
We are forgetting how to end things before we even start.
Ending a project, a relationship, giving up on your piece because it wasn't really what you expected, or because you don't really have time or desire anymore. Burning out. Fighting over something until you hate it and don't even want it anymore. There are many ways to destroy.
Kronos is a myth of time, where the father ate his own children. By doing so, there is already a reminder that even if we don't change, the world will; everything around us will. That's the basic level of destruction that is going on and on – time.
When I was writing this script, I was doing more research, reading more, coming up with references, and I realized that this process itself – of writing and rewriting – is a form of cannibalism in itself. I ate and drank from references, and therefore there is a part of them in me now, but there is also a part that is lost. Maybe in the book I talked about at the beginning of this blog, the author hasn't even thought about destruction as much as I've used here in my own formulations, because that is my interpretation.
And in many stories, we have the image of a part being erased, removed, or destroyed. For example, hair being cut, as in Samson and Delilah, or Rapunzel, or Powerless from Lauren Roberts. As the part is gone, the person is transformed, destroyed, but open for a new creation and version of themselves.
That is character development, something goes missing and the person is reborn.
That's what happens in stages of cancer. For months now, people in my family have been fighting cancer, and because I am living far away, I get to see the photos, and it is as if each photo shows a part of them missing; the body really does get destroyed piece by piece. But they are still there despite it. They have a treatment, a solution for now, which is what creativity brings: solutions.
So creatives are indeed helping society all the time.
But I wonder if creativity also takes something from us in order to give us some new idea or solution back.
Which leads me to some applications of destruction for a better world, and to changes and more solutions for the problems we are facing as individuals and as a society:
1 - Destruction can be a form of protest, challenging established norms, power structures, and historical narratives – like, what is art? We make stuff to provoke and intrigue, destroying the concept of art itself. Is it art even if it's on YouTube?! Is it professional if it's for free?
2 - In this movement, we also see some protests destroying art itself – like the Mona Lisa and other art pieces or museums that have been attacked. The rage and urge to create something new is sometimes not nice, polite, or beautiful.
Destruction makes us hope again, liberates sadness, anger, and other shadows that are just as important as our light, and mostly lets us believe in art again – an art that is here to change something and bring real solutions, and not just be mere decoration.
The world asks for consistency, beauty, quantity. And yet, being creative and an artist demands more transformation than that.
Whenever I silenced my rage or was too much of a people-pleaser, I ended up with a creative block. After every situation that pisses me off – I want to leave, to scream, to gossip, to write in my journal, to break things, to change things, to cry, and to create. And so I realized that a huge part of my inspiration, and where my creative energy comes from, is coming from the things that got destroyed in myself or the world around me.
And I believe that there are two kinds of destruction:
A painful, sad, unfair one, like war, or a sandcastle vanishing with the wave, a love relationship, or death itself.
But there is also the one that can be a relief, freedom, liberating, pleasurable, like cleaning the room, or a new haircut, taking the trash out finally so it doesn't smell anymore.
And some are in our hands – you can take out the trash now – but some are out of our control. But every destruction scenario ends up offering a possibility to create something out of it.
Links and Quotes for more:
