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If you're in New York please join us at SculptureCenter to celebrate the release of Kerstin Brätsch's fantastic Quarterly archive. CFGNY will be activating the archive and KAYA will be serving drinks.
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A man destroyed a porcelain sculpture by Ai Weiwei seemingly on purpose during the opening reception of an exhibition dedicated to the Chinese dissident artist on Friday evening in Italy.
The destroyed work was Ai’s blue-and-white Porcelain Cube, which was included in a survey on Ai titled “Who am I?” at the Palazzo Fava in Bologna, which opened to the public on Saturday.
Footage of the destruction was captured on CCTV and posted to Instagram by Ai. In the video, the man steps onto the plinth that holds the Cube and pushes it forward, shattering the work. He then lifted up a portion of the broken porcelain over his head. The work was installed in an atrium near the museum giftshop and ticket office.
The Bologna edition of Milan-based daily newspaper Corriere della Sera identified the man as 57-year-old Czech Vaclav Pisvejc, who was stopped by museum security and detained until police arrived. It is still unclear how he entered the museum during the invite-only reception. He was arrested for “destruction, dispersion, deterioration, defacement, soiling and illicit use of cultural or landscape assets,” according to the paper.
Arturo Galansino, the exhibition’s curator and the director general of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, told Reuters, “Unfortunately, I know the author of this inconsiderate gesture from a series of disturbing and damaging episodes over the years involving various exhibitions and institutions in Florence.”
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