The Urge to Destroy
The protests in Minneapolis in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by officer Derrick Shouvin quickly devolved into buildings being burnt to the ground. While artists took to the streets with paint cans clutched in hands, some of the most memorable work that the country could have imagined in the midst of the dual trauma of a pandemic and yet another police brutality incident was created and illuminated by the soft glow of a police precint ablaze. Commentators decrying the violence dominated Fox news and other right wing channels-- while activists took the mic on other platforms and reminded us that violence is language of the unheard. Art was intertwined in the pain and trauma of the situation-- calling for onlookers to take action and create a lasting change.
Violence and art can go hand in hand-- but any time that it does critics have often declared it radical and extreme. Perhaps they are right, but in writing it off in this manner, those critics are missing a point that artivist Banksy attempted to make amidst a video he posted to YouTube following the shredding of his painting on an auction-house floor: “the urge to destroy is also a creative one.” Collective identity theory would agree with Banksy’s assertion because according to this theory, “social movement is the key effect of rhetoric” (136 The Rhetoric of Social Movements). Social movement does not inherently mean peaceful movement. It does not mean that everyone will hold hands and skip down the street--what Banksy meant by attaching the sentiment that destruction was creative was simply that sometimes to seek change-- a place, idea, or system needs to simply be destroyed and started again from scratch. Sometimes the best rhetoric seeks to tear the walls down entirely.
Artivists often attempt this type of barrier shred through the creation of a culture jam-- that is-- a deliberate attempt by the artist to create a situation which causes the audience of the piece to pause and consider the implications of the piece. As a result of their unabashed trashing of the norms, these artivists are often referred to by words with negative connotations: radical, revolutionary, arsonist, criminal, etc-- but all of these socially created concepts merely scratch the surface of an artivistic expression. The intent is not to destroy-- the intent is to cause pause in pursuit of change-- though sometimes that pause is only created through destruction.
Street artivist Banksy put this thought into action with the creation of his “Girl with Balloon,” a simple picture of a girl reaching for a red balloon which was just out of reach. The painting was the first piece sold at auction which was painted by the controversial yet popular street artist, but the joy of such a monumental moment was quickly replaced by shock and horror as mere moments after the gavel fell closing the auction at 1.4 million dollars, the painting began to shred through the bottom of the frame. Auction attendees were aghast at the sight of the painting’s shredded pieces protruding from the bottom of the embellished golden frame; gasps, photos, and feverish conversation wrapt the auction-house floor as art aficionados witnessed Banksy’s carefully thought out long-game art piece. The shock didn’t stop there though, the artist himself took to Instagram and posted simply... “Going, going, gone...” atop an image of the painting. Banksy is known for his creative modes of expression, but this was entirely different because never before had a painting or piece of art self destructed. Shortly after the shredding, Banksy posted a video of himself adding a shredder to the picture frame. His video ended by simply saying “in case it was ever put up for auction.” Banksy added simply: “the urge to destroy is also a creative one” as a final thought.
Banksy recognized that as an art based rhetor, in order to make a point that audiences would hear about his topic, he had to culture jam them, the moment called for him to cause pause in order to create meaningful conversation. And it worked—articles, posts on social media, videos, commentary—it dominated the conversations worldwide and caused people to start wondering about why he would do this. He didn’t even have to explain because the audience interpretation of the why seemed to drive the conversation. (Insert idea about circulation in rhetoric here).
Rhetorician Kenneth Burke would argue that Banksy created a common ground through his stunt—bringing people to a space where they could all discuss—without pretension or qualification—the impact of selling art. He further left the audience with a morsel to chew on by simply stating that destruction can also be artistic, a notion which challenged art aficionados’ idea that art must fit within a certain structure.
To create a culture jam though-- is to use the language of a ‘man’ (sic. group) to create a pause for them. Banksy did just that--through his creation of a piece of “fine art,” and he has continues to do things like this today. In fact, every Banksy piece is a testament to Burke’s identification theory because while Banksy started out as a street artist in his hometown of Bristol, he did so by using a form of art that people in fine art circles regarded as menacing-- but by employing artistic elements he sought to create messages across the country (and later world) to challenge the beliefs of people. It is this combination of the idea of fine art and the idea of vandalism which allowed Banksy to create pieces which caused pause. Had Burke lived through the age of Banksy, he would likely regard him as a very effective rhetor. Burke’s identification theory “presumes that ‘you persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his’” (15 contemporary rhetorical theory).
Banksy’s art was effective not only because it created common ground though—Rhetorician John Dewey would quip that what Banksy did is take the mere idea of art and art collection—and challenge it directly by causing people to experience it in a new way—because Dewey maintained that art itself is an experience—it’s not meant to simply hang on walls and be held by few people—it’s meant to be lived. Dewey’s idea of art as an experience goes farther though-- noting that the experience itself comes from emotion. Dewey doesn’t believe that art’s intention is simply to hang on walls though-- but to open windows into other worlds through which humanity can grow and change-- and he notes that “essentially the ability to learn from experience; the power to retain from one experience something which is of avail in coping with the difficulties of a later situation” (DE: 49). Dewey’s whole idea of art being an experienc to create growth and change aligns with the work of Banksy because it is forward thinking, it creates a space which challenges the throughts and ideals of others, and it does so in an effort to create meaningful and lasting change. Banksy wants his audience to experience his work and interact with it, which is evidenced in the fact that he created a piece of artwork which seemed stationary, but became interactive the moment the gavel fell-- and it drew it’s audience in to create a shared experience which caused them and those on the outside to question the norms they were enforcing through their participation in this artistic buy.
And when you couple the ideas of Burke and Dewey with the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs-you can see just why it was so effective. Banksy challenged people in a way that didn’t cause any harm to their hierarchy of needs--and therefore they were able to discuss and learn. The
On the opposite end of the spectrum though, artists whose works were illuminated with the amber glow of burning buildings during the George Floyd protests may have had great insights and things to say, but they were coupled with divisiveness in that they associated themselves with destruction that challenged the safety of people. Habermas’s criterion of communicative action explains this separation between these two street arts best when he notes that communication is how a society evolves, but that communication is also a performative action which highlights how the social world operates. The world-- may not agree, and Habermas makes this plain when he notes that “it is not only a process of reaching understanding...actors are at the same time taking part in interactions through which they develop, confirm, and renew their memberships in social groups and their own identities” (uregina.ca). Therefore-- artivism has the power to create a space where people can listen, but certain conditions must be met in order for a communicative act to happen in which the audience of said art can truly grapple with the messaging that the artivist wants them to.