Do we sanctify art too much? Or should art be alive?

That’s the claim of a man who defaced a Rothko painting at Tate Modern on Sunday.

Vladimir Umanets, the founder of a movement he calls “Yellowism”, compared himself to Marcel Duchamp, saying: “Art allows us to take what someone’s done and put a new message on it.”

He cited Duchamp’s appropriation of a urinal in the name of art, Fountain (1917), as both a context and explanation for his actions.

He said the most contemporary thing to do now was to “abandon and live art” and hopes he “will be considered as someone who really creates”.

What is one person’s art is clearly another person’s vandalism – and who is to say one person’s view is more important than another?

But when a piece of artwork is located where it is enjoyed by thousands of art-lovers every year and one person takes it on themselves to inflict their opinions onto everyone else – it’s pretty hard to accept it as anything other than ignorant.

Or else we would be all stealing Henry Moore sculptures and selling them for scrap metal.

October 2014

August 2014

June 2014

May 2014

March 2014

February 2014

January 2014

December 2013

November 2013

October 2013

September 2013

August 2013

July 2013

June 2013

May 2013

April 2013

March 2013

February 2013

December 2012

November 2012

October 2012

September 2012

August 2012

July 2012

June 2012

May 2012

April 2012

Back to Top