Image from Mr Zenit 2000 blog http://mrzenit2000.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/ai-wei-wei.html
MODERN ICONOCLASTS
Artists who innovate and challenge the existing conventions of the art world both garner immense attention and a range of response, as well leave a remarkable scope for evolution and development that is as powerful as an earthquake. Like an earthquake, they disrupt everything in its "right" place, sending tremors up the comfortable and conventional. Their potency ruptures and reveals previous flaws and faults. In the face of destruction, they dare for distinction. These invigorating iconoclasts such as Duchamp, Rauschenberg and Ai Wei Wei have had indelible effects on the art world that provoke us to embrace life and art (and the gap in between) a whole new way.
Marcel Duchamp is deemed as one of the most precocious, ingenuous and deeply influential renegades of the 20th century. Like an earthquake, this iconoclast truly sundered the paradigms and authorities of the art world with a legacy and influence that has continued to foster the shifting plates and ideals of art in decades and movements to come. Working within the Dada movement of 1916-1924, Duchamp embodies ideals of cynicism rejecting traditional conventions of art and the institution involved in the conflict of war, generates a sense of absurdity, mockery, and produced artworks in which their efficacy was to bring more conceptual social commentary rather than beauty or value located in proficiency of skill. Duchamp experimented in provocation, in which the “alchemy of the artist” was forged in making conscious effort to breakdown these expectations in art tradition of the role of the artist, the classic grandeur and esteemed connotations of sculpture, and the removal of the aesthetic appeal that disrupted centuries of thinking. He invented a new style of art, one that involves the mind rather than the eye/retinal with indifference, as well as collaboration and use of found objects in what would manifest in his new form; the readymade, as Duchamp described, elevating the dignity of an ordinary object to a work of art merely by the choice of an artist.
As Jonathan Jones of The Guardian discussed:
“His big idea - that any ordinary “readymade” object can be chosen by the artist as a work of art - has sunk so deep into modern culture that he is imagined as a biblical prophet, a remote figure of authority. It’s as if contemporary art history begins with him. Art is steeped in tradition...But Duchamp did something for which there was no precedent.”
Bicycle Wheel was Duchamp’s first “readymade” as well as the art world’s first kinetic sculpture. Originally conceived and created in 1913, the artist fastened a bicycle fork with its front wheel mounted upside down on a wooden stool as an “assisted readymade,” in which a work of art was fashioned by combining utilitarian items of aesthetic indifference, changing its context and position, and removing its function. This unprecedented and audacious approach required altering the processes in which art making occurs; replacing the artist’s personally produced artistic articles with already manufactured objects, even the non rational design all defy the notions that art must be beautiful, and highlight Duchamp’s conscious provocations to the breakdown of tradition to invent a new style of art that defied the notions of beauty and in turn appealed as “retinal” displays. Duchamp later described his innovative conceptual conception:
“To see the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day. I liked the idea of having a bicycle wheel in my studio. I enjoyed looking at it just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movement of the flames.”
Perhaps one of the most striking facets of this artwork was Duchamp’s encouragement for responders to spin the wheel, hence introducing the form of kinetic sculpture. Further, the upside down and immovable nature of the work creates a juxtaposition of motion and stasis and generates a comic effect, as do the allusions to human form and domestic pleasures. The artwork was actually lost and then remade almost four decades later by Duchamp after he was approached by Sidney Janis a New York gallerist who found the bicycle wheel and fork in Paris in 1950 and the stool in Brooklyn.
Whilst his wheel spun the art world into a stir, Duchamp’s Fountain is his most notorious and provocative readymade that truly paved the way for conceptual art in the 20th century. Made in 1917, Duchamp bought a brand new, stark, shiny porcelain urinal from Mott's, laid on it's back rather than upright, and signed the pseudonym "R. Mutt" on the base in black thick paint. He then submitted his artwork at the last minute under the same name to the Society of Independent Artists art show that promised to exhibit every work, and to which the artist himself was actually part of on the jury. Whilst it was on display in the show hidden amongst a curtain after the shocked panel reluctantly stuck to their word after an emergency meeting upon reception, it became misplaced and disappeared thereafter. Considered as both an experiment and prank, the work has gone on to epitomise Duchamp's readymade practice and conceptual intentions that challenge the responder in their perceptions and beliefs of art making, the artwork, meaning and aesthetic. Due to this unprecedented nature, it was viewed negatively as an attack on the basic conventions of art and deemed as "a plain piece of plumbing". However, Duchamp was actually able to defend his secret artwork in an unsigned article in The Blind Man magazine published by a friend.
“Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view — created a new thought for that object.” Therefore, the artist conveyed the essence of his own conceptual practice yet also set the foundations of the Dada movement and modern art for decades to come.
Duchamp’s readymades had an immense and indelible impact on the nature of the art world, prompting the expansion of modern art, and even influencing minimalism, conceptualism, performance art later in history. His iconoclastic visionary both ruptured historical and institutional conventions, as well as spurring on the transformation of modern art in the 20th century. Hence, today we still bear witness to his powerful, revolutionary effects that have surfaced in the works of other artists.
Marcel Duchamp is deemed as one of the most precocious, ingenuous and deeply influential renegades of the 20th century. Like an earthquake, this iconoclast truly sundered the paradigms and authorities of the art world with a legacy and influence that has continued to foster the shifting plates and ideals of art in decades and movements to come. Working within the Dada movement of 1916-1924, Duchamp embodies ideals of cynicism rejecting traditional conventions of art and the institution involved in the conflict of war, generates a sense of absurdity, mockery, and produced artworks in which their efficacy was to bring more conceptual social commentary rather than beauty or value located in proficiency of skill. Duchamp experimented in provocation, in which the “alchemy of the artist” was forged in making conscious effort to breakdown these expectations in art tradition of the role of the artist, the classic grandeur and esteemed connotations of sculpture, and the removal of the aesthetic appeal that disrupted centuries of thinking. He invented a new style of art, one that involves the mind rather than the eye/retinal with indifference, as well as collaboration and use of found objects in what would manifest in his new form; the readymade, as Duchamp described, elevating the dignity of an ordinary object to a work of art merely by the choice of an artist.
As Jonathan Jones of The Guardian discussed:
“His big idea - that any ordinary “readymade” object can be chosen by the artist as a work of art - has sunk so deep into modern culture that he is imagined as a biblical prophet, a remote figure of authority. It’s as if contemporary art history begins with him. Art is steeped in tradition...But Duchamp did something for which there was no precedent.”
Bicycle Wheel was Duchamp’s first “readymade” as well as the art world’s first kinetic sculpture. Originally conceived and created in 1913, the artist fastened a bicycle fork with its front wheel mounted upside down on a wooden stool as an “assisted readymade,” in which a work of art was fashioned by combining utilitarian items of aesthetic indifference, changing its context and position, and removing its function. This unprecedented and audacious approach required altering the processes in which art making occurs; replacing the artist’s personally produced artistic articles with already manufactured objects, even the non rational design all defy the notions that art must be beautiful, and highlight Duchamp’s conscious provocations to the breakdown of tradition to invent a new style of art that defied the notions of beauty and in turn appealed as “retinal” displays. Duchamp later described his innovative conceptual conception:
“To see the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day. I liked the idea of having a bicycle wheel in my studio. I enjoyed looking at it just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movement of the flames.”
Perhaps one of the most striking facets of this artwork was Duchamp’s encouragement for responders to spin the wheel, hence introducing the form of kinetic sculpture. Further, the upside down and immovable nature of the work creates a juxtaposition of motion and stasis and generates a comic effect, as do the allusions to human form and domestic pleasures. The artwork was actually lost and then remade almost four decades later by Duchamp after he was approached by Sidney Janis a New York gallerist who found the bicycle wheel and fork in Paris in 1950 and the stool in Brooklyn.
Whilst his wheel spun the art world into a stir, Duchamp’s Fountain is his most notorious and provocative readymade that truly paved the way for conceptual art in the 20th century. Made in 1917, Duchamp bought a brand new, stark, shiny porcelain urinal from Mott's, laid on it's back rather than upright, and signed the pseudonym "R. Mutt" on the base in black thick paint. He then submitted his artwork at the last minute under the same name to the Society of Independent Artists art show that promised to exhibit every work, and to which the artist himself was actually part of on the jury. Whilst it was on display in the show hidden amongst a curtain after the shocked panel reluctantly stuck to their word after an emergency meeting upon reception, it became misplaced and disappeared thereafter. Considered as both an experiment and prank, the work has gone on to epitomise Duchamp's readymade practice and conceptual intentions that challenge the responder in their perceptions and beliefs of art making, the artwork, meaning and aesthetic. Due to this unprecedented nature, it was viewed negatively as an attack on the basic conventions of art and deemed as "a plain piece of plumbing". However, Duchamp was actually able to defend his secret artwork in an unsigned article in The Blind Man magazine published by a friend.
“Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view — created a new thought for that object.” Therefore, the artist conveyed the essence of his own conceptual practice yet also set the foundations of the Dada movement and modern art for decades to come.
Duchamp’s readymades had an immense and indelible impact on the nature of the art world, prompting the expansion of modern art, and even influencing minimalism, conceptualism, performance art later in history. His iconoclastic visionary both ruptured historical and institutional conventions, as well as spurring on the transformation of modern art in the 20th century. Hence, today we still bear witness to his powerful, revolutionary effects that have surfaced in the works of other artists.
One of these artists who has continued in the Duchamp tradition is the prolific and potent American Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), who too has had a significant influence in turn on avant-garde artists and is remembered as an iconoclast both breaking and bridging art of his time. In many ways, we can consider the painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer and performance artist to be a “neo-dadist” as Duchamp deemed him, as well as the first post-modernist. Rauschenberg, whose aim was to “act in the gap between life and art” with “maximum lack of control” created the combine; an artwork incorporating various objects into a
painted canvas surface that amalgamated a sort of hybrid of painting and sculpture. These combines incorporated popular culture motifs, photographs, newspapers, fabrics, urban detritus, stuffed animals, and canvas base which were manipulated to explore inversion as well as new links between artistic traditions. Whilst the artist ventured to move between these material realms, he also strived to navigate these realms of life and art in constant dialogue with viewers, the surrounding social and political world, and even art history. This innovation is reflected in many of his works, from his iconic Retroactive series featuring John F. Kennedy, the renowned Canvas featuring an eagle mid-flight emerging from the base, Monogram (cited as: mixed mediums with taxidermy goat, rubber tire and tennis ball), and Bed, one of the most esteemed examples of his combine practice.
Bed was created in 1955 by combining the artist’s own pillows, a hand made quilt, and features paint expressively over it in a parody reference to Jackson Pollock’s emblem of the drip. This gestural technique reflects notions of authentic experience & the abstract expressionists movement, in which he challenged their ideas of conjuring and manifesting the internal state and instead presented very vividly the actual arena of the dream; his bed. Hence his work is more ironic than sincere, absurd but personal. Hung on the gallery wall like a traditional painting, we see how he blurred boundaries of both presenting and art making, in which he employs new craftsmanship to painting that combines sculpture in ways that the artist intended to feel right rather than look right, imploring the responder to make connections and analyse for themselves.
In all, Rauschenberg certainly had a profound effect on the art world that provoked as much as it did inspire. His work of the 1950s and 1960s lead a new generation of artists that would later embrace his practice in collage and amalgamation with non-art materials, media images as well as his later experiments in silkscreen printing. Significantly, this includes artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein who referenced their inspiration for pop art to his prodigious works. Moreover, the foundation for conceptual art is traced in part to Rauschenberg’s own Dada-based beliefs that defied determining artistic definitions and conventions. As the artist stated in an oral history 1965 interview for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: “I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else.”
Additionally, this view was shared by German artist Hannah Höch: “I wish to blur the boundaries which we self- certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” Her pioneering collage work embodies the Dada movement through politically charged conceptual intentions and embracing the rebellious ideals of this new philosophy. Her incorporation of texts she found increasingly defined the contemporary life, her critique of the Weimar German Government as well as modernity through rearrangement of mass media newsprint, magazines, maps, tickets, propaganda and photographs in unorthodox and chance based procedures reflect the movement, as well as establish her as a prolific and astute artist well beyond her time. Höch tended to interrogate conventional concepts of relationships, beauty and the making of art, and as a staunch feminist is remembered for her subversion of traditional gender and racial stereotypes in visually striking ways in line with the Dada movement. In Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, arguably her most famous work, collage of newspaper clippings, fashion magazines, illustrated journals and photography to shed light into racist and sexist principles present in her post WW1 German context. Furthermore, in Indian Dancer: From an Ethnographic Museum, the artist creates collage using a photograph of a famous actress of the time with a short haircut to reflect the modern German New Woman, yet suggests that the woman is still confined through the frozen mouth, mask, and donned in a crown with the emblems of domesticity; forks, knives and spoons, “the stereotypical drudgery of a housewife". Thus, Höch demonstrates that art itself could be collected form the everyday clutter of modern life, and had the power and freedom to express opposing views of a corrupted world and in turn challenge conventions. Therefore, we see Rauschenberg and Höch’s daring innovation though their material & conceptual practice was equally provocative as it was powerful. Like an earthquake, they cracked open to create new possibilities and effectively shaped the art landscape to come.
painted canvas surface that amalgamated a sort of hybrid of painting and sculpture. These combines incorporated popular culture motifs, photographs, newspapers, fabrics, urban detritus, stuffed animals, and canvas base which were manipulated to explore inversion as well as new links between artistic traditions. Whilst the artist ventured to move between these material realms, he also strived to navigate these realms of life and art in constant dialogue with viewers, the surrounding social and political world, and even art history. This innovation is reflected in many of his works, from his iconic Retroactive series featuring John F. Kennedy, the renowned Canvas featuring an eagle mid-flight emerging from the base, Monogram (cited as: mixed mediums with taxidermy goat, rubber tire and tennis ball), and Bed, one of the most esteemed examples of his combine practice.
Bed was created in 1955 by combining the artist’s own pillows, a hand made quilt, and features paint expressively over it in a parody reference to Jackson Pollock’s emblem of the drip. This gestural technique reflects notions of authentic experience & the abstract expressionists movement, in which he challenged their ideas of conjuring and manifesting the internal state and instead presented very vividly the actual arena of the dream; his bed. Hence his work is more ironic than sincere, absurd but personal. Hung on the gallery wall like a traditional painting, we see how he blurred boundaries of both presenting and art making, in which he employs new craftsmanship to painting that combines sculpture in ways that the artist intended to feel right rather than look right, imploring the responder to make connections and analyse for themselves.
In all, Rauschenberg certainly had a profound effect on the art world that provoked as much as it did inspire. His work of the 1950s and 1960s lead a new generation of artists that would later embrace his practice in collage and amalgamation with non-art materials, media images as well as his later experiments in silkscreen printing. Significantly, this includes artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein who referenced their inspiration for pop art to his prodigious works. Moreover, the foundation for conceptual art is traced in part to Rauschenberg’s own Dada-based beliefs that defied determining artistic definitions and conventions. As the artist stated in an oral history 1965 interview for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: “I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else.”
Additionally, this view was shared by German artist Hannah Höch: “I wish to blur the boundaries which we self- certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” Her pioneering collage work embodies the Dada movement through politically charged conceptual intentions and embracing the rebellious ideals of this new philosophy. Her incorporation of texts she found increasingly defined the contemporary life, her critique of the Weimar German Government as well as modernity through rearrangement of mass media newsprint, magazines, maps, tickets, propaganda and photographs in unorthodox and chance based procedures reflect the movement, as well as establish her as a prolific and astute artist well beyond her time. Höch tended to interrogate conventional concepts of relationships, beauty and the making of art, and as a staunch feminist is remembered for her subversion of traditional gender and racial stereotypes in visually striking ways in line with the Dada movement. In Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, arguably her most famous work, collage of newspaper clippings, fashion magazines, illustrated journals and photography to shed light into racist and sexist principles present in her post WW1 German context. Furthermore, in Indian Dancer: From an Ethnographic Museum, the artist creates collage using a photograph of a famous actress of the time with a short haircut to reflect the modern German New Woman, yet suggests that the woman is still confined through the frozen mouth, mask, and donned in a crown with the emblems of domesticity; forks, knives and spoons, “the stereotypical drudgery of a housewife". Thus, Höch demonstrates that art itself could be collected form the everyday clutter of modern life, and had the power and freedom to express opposing views of a corrupted world and in turn challenge conventions. Therefore, we see Rauschenberg and Höch’s daring innovation though their material & conceptual practice was equally provocative as it was powerful. Like an earthquake, they cracked open to create new possibilities and effectively shaped the art landscape to come.
After the reign of Rauschenberg that influenced the movement of Pop Art, a shift into the conceptual shaped our contemporary art world in which artists are moved to act as social commentators and public figures, sparking both activism and controversy, truly sending tremors through the existing conventions of the art world. Who is it today that cultivates these ruptures of the “right”, who epitomises this thirst for distinction, and invigorates art culture with courage and creation? It’s the artist who will shape a coat hanger to resemble the silhouette of dear Duchamp, who will paint the CocaCola logo onto a Neolithic vase, or submerge it in auto paint, and smash an identical one into pieces. He’ll fill the Tate Turbine Hall with sunflower seeds, splatter thousands of dollars worth of clothes in paint, and design an Olympic Stadium only to be detained and attacked by the same government who once relished him in notability and praise in the Chinese consciousness. It’s this same artist who will leave #flowersforfreedom outside his “Fake” home and studio because even within the constraints of his authoritarian world of constant monitoring, his prolific potency and practice still blooms and flourishes across the world. Ai Weiwei - possibly China’s most dangerous dissident man, and an iconoclast of our time.
In the New York Times in 2004, Holland Cotter described him as an “artist whose role has been the stimulating, mould-breaking one of scholar-clown”. Ai Weiwei considers himself (like Duchamp) more of a chess player; working through his world with purpose and position. Though surpasses the role of an artist alone as a conceptual artist, architect, curator, designer, film maker, writer and activist, his longing for transparency is more than clear. His avant-garde practice incorporates assisted readymade sculpture, defamatory photography and navigating the powerful online realm, in which he empowers with knowledge and expression with new sagacity through social and political commentary, often motivating meditation collectivism vs the individual in the communist society. Like Rauschenberg, he strives to traverse life and art, transcending a world of restrictions and censoring so though “Ai can’t be here”, his work still inspires and provokes around the globe.
In his earlier work from 1994, Han Dynasty Urn with CocaCola Logo, Ai purchased a vase from Neolithic Age (5000-3000 BC) and replicated the iconic CocaCola waved font in red and white paint along the surface. Unlike Duchamp’s absurdist strategy of the readymade, the urn already harbours cultural, historical and anthropological significance outside of an artistic context. Ai does however similarly challenge the role and authorship of traditional artisans when compared to modern mass production and multiplicity, rendering CocaCola a representative of the rise of western globalisation, its text as an international language of consumption and wealth. The artist himself grappled with this intensification of relations when he returned to China after living in New York during the 80s, traumatised by the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The tribulations of such destruction is something the artist wanted to emulate; literally stamping and smashing out the old, as evident in his following work Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995). In disrupting the ideals of art as well as questioning the cultural values and social issues deeply rooted in Chinese history, an arena in which the modern world is so often threatened by the past, Ai defies time, as does the rapid pace of globalisation and corporations.
These notions are additionally exemplified in the work of contemporary Chinese political pop artist Wang Guangyi, whose Great Criticism Series links the proletarian propaganda motifs of the Cultural Revolution with that of American consumerism, logos of brands namely Campbell’s, TIME and of course, CocaCola. This supposed juxtaposition is surprisingly quite harmonious; these brands celebrate the same red in their emblems as Mao’s Little Red book and the communist armbands donned by the mendacious, garish yellow stylised characters, highlighting the same hypocrisy to Western consumerism’s monumental ideologies and systems and the omnipotency of the Maoist regime and modern globalisation. Ironic, compelling, but also deeply philosophical, Wang’s works display a reinvigorating but provocative analysis of contemporary China. Certainly, artists like this who subvert paradigms and forge new connections for artistic, social, and political purposes are truly profound.
In all, artists who innovate and challenge existing conventions shape the landscape of the art world enormously. As Ai Weiwei discussed, “Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential.”, and in considering iconoclasts and provocateurs such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Ai Weiwei, and even Hannah Höch and Wang Guangyi, we see the fissures of force forge new foundations of the art landscape. More indelible than Rauschenberg’s Erased DeKooning, and more formidable than the earthquake that inspired Ai’s Remembrance, history has bore witness to these renegades, and we are sure to find a future filled with more.
In the New York Times in 2004, Holland Cotter described him as an “artist whose role has been the stimulating, mould-breaking one of scholar-clown”. Ai Weiwei considers himself (like Duchamp) more of a chess player; working through his world with purpose and position. Though surpasses the role of an artist alone as a conceptual artist, architect, curator, designer, film maker, writer and activist, his longing for transparency is more than clear. His avant-garde practice incorporates assisted readymade sculpture, defamatory photography and navigating the powerful online realm, in which he empowers with knowledge and expression with new sagacity through social and political commentary, often motivating meditation collectivism vs the individual in the communist society. Like Rauschenberg, he strives to traverse life and art, transcending a world of restrictions and censoring so though “Ai can’t be here”, his work still inspires and provokes around the globe.
In his earlier work from 1994, Han Dynasty Urn with CocaCola Logo, Ai purchased a vase from Neolithic Age (5000-3000 BC) and replicated the iconic CocaCola waved font in red and white paint along the surface. Unlike Duchamp’s absurdist strategy of the readymade, the urn already harbours cultural, historical and anthropological significance outside of an artistic context. Ai does however similarly challenge the role and authorship of traditional artisans when compared to modern mass production and multiplicity, rendering CocaCola a representative of the rise of western globalisation, its text as an international language of consumption and wealth. The artist himself grappled with this intensification of relations when he returned to China after living in New York during the 80s, traumatised by the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. The tribulations of such destruction is something the artist wanted to emulate; literally stamping and smashing out the old, as evident in his following work Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995). In disrupting the ideals of art as well as questioning the cultural values and social issues deeply rooted in Chinese history, an arena in which the modern world is so often threatened by the past, Ai defies time, as does the rapid pace of globalisation and corporations.
These notions are additionally exemplified in the work of contemporary Chinese political pop artist Wang Guangyi, whose Great Criticism Series links the proletarian propaganda motifs of the Cultural Revolution with that of American consumerism, logos of brands namely Campbell’s, TIME and of course, CocaCola. This supposed juxtaposition is surprisingly quite harmonious; these brands celebrate the same red in their emblems as Mao’s Little Red book and the communist armbands donned by the mendacious, garish yellow stylised characters, highlighting the same hypocrisy to Western consumerism’s monumental ideologies and systems and the omnipotency of the Maoist regime and modern globalisation. Ironic, compelling, but also deeply philosophical, Wang’s works display a reinvigorating but provocative analysis of contemporary China. Certainly, artists like this who subvert paradigms and forge new connections for artistic, social, and political purposes are truly profound.
In all, artists who innovate and challenge existing conventions shape the landscape of the art world enormously. As Ai Weiwei discussed, “Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential.”, and in considering iconoclasts and provocateurs such as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Ai Weiwei, and even Hannah Höch and Wang Guangyi, we see the fissures of force forge new foundations of the art landscape. More indelible than Rauschenberg’s Erased DeKooning, and more formidable than the earthquake that inspired Ai’s Remembrance, history has bore witness to these renegades, and we are sure to find a future filled with more.