'In Conversation: The New Iconoclasm'

It may be too soon to announce the foundation of “iconoclasm studies,” but scholarly and curatorial projects that take as their subject iconoclasm – defined as the deliberate damage or destruction of images and objects – are increasing. Over the past fifteen years, exhibitions such as Bruno Latour’s Iconoclash: Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, Religion and Art (2001) and more recently, the Hirshhorn Museum’s Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950 (2013-14) and Museum Leuven’s Ravaged: Art and Culture in Times of Conflict (2014) have considered acts and images of both iconoclasm and destruction across historic periods. Established in 2011, the AHRC Iconoclasms Network brought together a network of international scholars working in a range of fields to examine methodologies and to inform the development of the Tate Britain exhibition Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm (2013-14). Here, five Iconoclasms Network members representing different historic and geographic fields and disciplines have selected images and objects that capture important theoretical and practical issues for scholars of iconoclasm and serve as starting points for a broader transdisciplinary discussion about the subject.