The Vase Smashed in Protest
An artist who dropped an urn, and a protester who dropped his
Image: Unsplash
- Repair Cost
- ~$1 million
- Curator's Blood Pressure
- 97%
- Embarrassment Level
- 6/10 (for the museum)
- Recovered?
- No
- Selfie Involved?
- No
Local artist Maximo Caminero picked up and deliberately smashed one of Ai Weiwei's painted Han Dynasty vases in protest at the museum's neglect of local artists — an irony given Ai's own famous urn-dropping.
Ai Weiwei's series includes a triptych photograph of the artist himself dropping and destroying an ancient Han Dynasty urn — a meditation on iconoclasm and value. So there was a bitter symmetry when Caminero lifted one of the painted vases beside it and let it shatter on the floor.
Caminero said he acted to protest the museum's focus on international over local artists. He was arrested for criminal mischief. The vase, painted by Ai, was valued at around one million dollars — a protest that literalised the very themes the artwork explored.