Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm is often read through 3-dimensional objects, as it is these that bear the traces of destruction most visibly on their surfaces. Yet the visibility of iconoclasm is often also overstated, and its more subtle effects can be overlooked (such as changing a colour or removing an accessory from a statue to shift its symbolic or political meaning), especially those that shift gradually and continually over time. In this book, the editors reassess assumptions about the impact of...
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Iconoclasm is often read through 3-dimensional objects, as it is these that bear the traces of destruction most visibly on their surfaces. Yet the visibility of iconoclasm is often also overstated, and its more subtle effects can be overlooked (such as changing a colour or removing an accessory from a statue to shift its symbolic or political meaning), especially those that shift gradually and continually over time. In this book, the editors reassess assumptions about the impact of iconoclastic acts on objects, and question the very notion of 'iconoclasm' itself - both as a term that is used to describe certain historic episodes, and as a phenomenon through which we can conceptualize and define different destructive and transformative behaviours as they affect sculpture.