EIKON KLAO
Literally “I break an image”
Hence the word “iconoclasm”. A word with a noble, fascinating sound, with the elegance of the final “cout”.
If you try to pronounce it you will realize how harmonic it sounds.
A word with negative energy towards what is considered dangerous, inconvenient, unsuitable: an attack on something else.
What does “iconoclasm” really mean?
Does Contemporary Iconoclasm Exist?
To talk about it, you need to start with a little history. Even if iconoclasm in general always lives, since it always dwells in intolerance. It is the daughter of its time, like art. Because, in fact, it is indissolubly linked to the visual image.
It is also the daughter of an adverse feeling against something that we consider different from our upright and balanced canons.
For example, repressing a certain type of clothing is a form of iconoclasm, as it is preventing a certain image from being visible to the eyes of others. This is because someone else’s creed thinks it’s inconvenient.
Contemporary iconoclasm derives from intolerance. Although it is almost always passed off as decorum, religion, belief, righteousness, progressive vision, stance and political opposition.
Iconoclasm was born from a problem of a religious, theological and of course social order.
In the theological sphere the question arose mainly from the questions:
“Can man really represent the figure of Almighty God in graphic, visual and artistic form?”
“If he can do it, does it mean that man is an equal of God and is something that He allows?”
“And if this is not the case, representing that figure without He truly being God is equivalent to representing a false God, a material idol to which, however, devote the devotion that belongs only to the true God”?
From there, the idea that representing God, Saints, angels and more was equivalent to idolizing idols, which according to the Bible, the Koran and the Torah is not allowed. The bulk of this dispute began to really become a debate towards the fourth century, with actions of real vandalism even in urban warfare and serious tensions between the Byzantine Empire and the Church.
Even the transition from polytheism to monotheism left behind some iconographic destruction, since the belief soon resulted in fanaticism (intolerance, in fact), destroying statues of pagan gods and beautiful temples. Just think of the temple in Rome dedicated to all the gods, transformed into a church. What we now call and know as the Pantheon.
But it would be a long and very complicated thing to explain all the dynamics, aggravated by political tensions, historical events, a succession of popes and sovereigns and the influences of less tolerant religions.
The starting idea therefore is: an image carries with it something that deeply offends the creed of widespread social opinion, or at least that of the majority that matters most. Also fueled by the fact that the ability to express one’s thoughts was quite limited and that there were not so many preferences to express. Unless you are philosophers.
There are plenty of articles on the issue out there. In the summer it was the topic at the top of the wave, we talked about news. Then came the analyzes of historians, professors, experts. And finally the bloggers.
We try to do something different (as always). Let us try to analyze this topic in the way we do best. Not as a wave of rampant social unease (which it also is) but with an eye on what it represents and in the way of enjoying the works today.
Contemporary Iconoclasm. So let’s talk about current times.
Contemporary times, absolute freedom to disseminate, represent, venerate, reproduce, and still beg, suggest, explain, any type of iconographic content (even if it is not real iconography).
The starting point of this era is the immense, epochal availability of being able to express one’s opinion (and this is good) even when one does not know exactly what and why one does it (and this is bad).
Ours is an iconographic universe. It is all done through images. You write with images, you build your identity and your value through photos. So what prevents it from becoming an iconoclastic universe? Contemporary Iconoclasm.
The images, the mere visual representation, of whatever sphere it is, even the most minimal, has reached an almost sacred status. You follow the pictures even more than the content.
Ergo, the images, whether on paper, marble or binary code, constitute a status of sacredness. However, their importance is inversely proportional to their diffusivity and this is what makes them icons and images of anyone on the web at the same time. We refer to them and at the same time seeing them disfigured no longer triggers any reaction, precisely because we are now addicted to them.
The human being is therefore a living paradox. It is ambiguous by nature; And we are increasingly moving towards a reality in which man sharpens his ambiguities also because he does not know. He cannot speak, he cannot study, he cannot see what a statue, a photo, a work of art can offer beyond mere appearance.
In the name of what? Religion? Progress? Of justice? Of the truth
The cold-blooded killing of a black boy in American news by a policeman. An episode of bullying that resulted in the murder of a boy of mixed origins.
This is racism. But what does racism have to do with the statues of Christopher Columbus or even with the statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, defined as a “racist fish”?
1• The relentless accumulation of points of view
2• The unbridled freedom to do and say everything and the next day to do and say exactly the opposite
3• The unlimited possibility of contacting every person on the planet via the social network
4• The continuous and obese dissemination of news (many of which are written through the wrong channels and by non-competent people)
5• But above all that irrepressible desire to always be at the forefront of wanting to transform anything into a controversy. Just because being the opposing voice of the group is the best to appear.
Everything is poured into the images and through them.
Contemporary Iconoclasm.
Thus a maelström of images is created that feed themselves and all the hatred and ignorance and intolerance they carry within themselves.
But this is not about intolerance of whites against blacks.
This type of intolerance derives from the current sub-culture towards historical art and towards those forms of culture that still demonstrate the value of each country’s past and still remind us of who we were. People of art, culture, exploration, beauty.
Only by speaking of sub-culture can we somehow give a name to a movement that attacks the statue of Christopher Columbus because it represents the beginning of slavery. Or Gandhi’s alleged racism. Or Martin Luther King’s presumed machismo.
Do not let me tell you about the Little Mermaid of Copenhagen, please, I’m still trying to accept the connection they pulled out to find the right alibi to vandalize it.
The statues, works of art, tributes to men and women who made history, architectural works, churches, temples, monuments are not just precious treasures. They are clues to the fact that man evolves and transforms, changes shape, changes style and above all changes his mind.
History is like a river. He goes forward but sometimes without realizing it he witnesses familiar things. In this case, contemporary iconoclasm is not in the name of religion but in the name of “politically correct”, in a slightly distorted, melodramatic and completely disrespectful vision for what art and historical memory represent.
The next step could be a “Contemporary Middle Ages”: praising the flat earth, discrediting scientific theories, believing in demons in the sky taking control of our brains, denying medicine, feeding on things that don’t cast a shadow.
Isn’t it like we’re already there?
