At the opening reception of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’sexhibition Who Am I? at Palazzo Fava in Bologna, Italy, a man shattered a porcelain sculpture by the artist to the astonishment of visitors.
In a security video posted on Ai’s Instagram after the incident, a man identified as 57-year-old Vaclav Pisvejc from the Czech Republic is seen theatrically toppling the artist’s “Porcelain Cube” (2009)and then holding a fragment of the artwork over his head before four security guards tackle him to the ground.
Pisvejc reportedly has a record ofvandalismstretching back toat least 2018, when he hit performance artist Marina Abramovic over the head with a framed portrait of her. When she later asked him why he did it, he replied: “I had to do it for my art.”
The destroyed artwork, according to Palazzo Fava, demonstrates a mixture of Western avant-garde and traditional Chinese craft.
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