FTHo

Mary Ellen Carroll, Daringly Unbuilt, performance, 2017. The destruction of Prototype 180. Photo: Kenny Trice, courtesy the artist. Artwork in Archive of Destruction.

The website is made up of texts and images of artworks, projects, and performances that have been destroyed by institutions, local government, the general public, and the elements, as well as works that have been destroyed by artists themselves, or have the concept of destruction embedded within them. Examples include Robert Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed (1970), David Hammons’ How Ya Like Me Now? (1989), Joanna Rajkowska’s Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue (2002), and Nicole Eisenman’s Sketch for a Fountain (2017).

The aim is to create an exploratory, open-ended repository that reveals the multiple ways that public art can become a catalyst for conversations about political, social and environmental issues, as well as a vehicle for expressions of wit, humour and tenderness.

A series of essays by artists, curators, academics, and writers including Eloise Hawser,  Vanessa Onwuemezi, Maja Bekan, Marysia Lewandowska, Nephertiti Oboshi Schandorf, Jo Melvin, and Kiera Blakey have been commissioned for the website. These texts constitute a wide-ranging, exploratory series of responses to the archive, as well as an investigation into the subject of destruction. A number of these artists and writers will take part in a programme of online talks which have been organised to coincide with the launch. See www.archiveofdestruction.com for details.

Archive of Destruction is an ongoing research project that has no aspiration to be scientific or exhaustive. The selection is the result of conversations, journeys, and research carried out by Jes Fernie over the last ten years. Like most archives it is subjective, flawed, and a reflection of a particular time and place.