Friday, June 22, 2007

Nature and History

EUX.TV reports that Ai Weiwei's tower of Chinese doors at documenta 12 has collapsed during flooding on site.

The tower, constructed of old doors salvaged from demolished Qing Dynasty buildings, seems like a logical extension to photographic memorials to the lunacy of development in today's China, wherein history is being bulldozed at an extraordinary rate.

It seems even more appropriate that nature should have put the kibosh on the effort to memorialize what has been lost. If the developers don't get us, the storms of global warming will.

Whether the tower collapsed because of shoddy construction or because the artist didn't understand engineering principles, the collapse parallels the collapse of new construction, in China and many other booming locations around the globe. Even new construction made from old demolition is not immune.

Einstürzende Neubauten.

1 comment:

littlejoke said...
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