Man Smashes Porcelain Ai Weiwei Sculpture At Italian Museum

A large porcelain sculpture by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was left shattered Friday after a man smashed the artwork on display at a museum in Bologna, Italy.

Ai shared security footage of the act of vandalism on his piece, titled “Porcelain Cube,” and video of the suspect’s arrest outside the Palazzo Fava museum on his Instagram with a message to people who destroy art.

“You are literally ruining the things that make this world beautiful and cultured. Instead of destroying things in museums, how about you go destroy things actually hurting our planet and societies?” wrote Ai, a vocal critic of the Chinese government who’s been essentially exiled from his country.

“Piss on the front doors of the rich, sabotage industry that harms us all,” he continued. “Stop destroying our shared history and fight the people actually oppressing you.”

The security footage shows a man smashing Ai’s blue-and-white porcelain sculpture, then raising the shards above his head before being tackled by museum security personnel. His motive remains unknown.

Ai told The New York Times he was shocked someone managed to destroy such a large sculpture .

“When I learned that it was my large porcelain artwork that had been destroyed, I was astonished,” he said. “I never imagined that a piece nearly 100 kilos in weight could be damaged so easily.”

Local news outlets and art publications identified the attacker as Vaclav Pisvejc, a Czech-born artist known for pulling similar stunts. In 2018, Art Review noted, he attacked renowned artist Marina Abramović at a book signing by hitting her over the head with a canvas portrait of herself, saying, “I had to do it for my art.”

Arturo Galansino, the curator of the Ai exhibition in Bologna, told the Times he was saddened by the lost art and dismissed the vandal as someone seeking recognition.

“He’s a person that likes to gain attention disturbing exhibitions and being in contact with worldwide artists,” he said.

This isn’t the first time some of Ai’s art has been destroyed. In 2014, a visitor to Miami’s Pérez Art Museum picked up one of Ai’s vases on display and threw it to the ground, shattering it in an apparent act of protest.

Ai, too, has destroyed artifacts in the name of art. In 1995, he photographed himself dropping and shattering a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty urn. In response to the outrage, Ai said: “Chairman Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one.”