Curatorial text
Since the 1990s, environmental activists have repeatedly damaged works of art in museums in order to draw attention to climate change with nonsensical arguments and accuse stunned museum visitors of inaction. The exhibition and an accompanying research project examine whether these attacks can also be considered performative acts of art.
These take place in the sacred space of a museum, where the attacks – with paint and liquids – temporarily alter classic works and often require restoration. In his work, Tor Seidel focuses on the protagonists’ actionism, the shock or entertainment value for visitors, and the professional dissemination of videos of the attack groups on the internet. This leads him to conclude that these are not only ambivalent forms of protest, but also independent artistic acts. With paint bombs and soup, the actors succeed in transforming signifi cant works of art in unexpected ways and creating new experiences within the museum environment. Actionism challenges the common perception that classical art and museum spaces are sacrosanct and expands the concept of art – it takes art as action out of the predictable white cube and into the spontaneous spaces of society, transforming the museum into a stage for activist performances.
Tor Seidel reconstructs some of these attacks in three phases: a reenactment of the scene following the attack, collecting statements from those involved, and transforming the defacement into a new piece: the alteration has been manifested. Therefore, the transformation into a new work is postulated: the change, whether lasting a few days or months during a complex or straightforward restoration, means that the work has been forever altered by the presence of the videos fi lmed during the attack. Its transformation implies a new context of meaning that cannot be obscured.
About the Artist
Tor Seidel is a German artist, curator, and lecturer with extensive experience teaching art at universities, as well as in the gallery and exhibition sectors. He is also active as a fi lmmaker and author of art books, having published works on the UAE, including “The Dubai” (Hatje-Cantz 2015) and “Mannequins” (Kerber 2018). He has exhibited in numerous cities, such as Paris, Dubai, London, Miami, Berlin, Sharjah, Athens, and Venice, among others. Another artist book by Tor, titled “In Uncharted Territories” (2021), was published by Kerber Verlag and accompanied his first institutional solo exhibition in the UAE at the Maraya Art Center in 2020.
Tor has received several awards, including the 2017 Syngenta Photo Award, and nominations for the German Photo Book Award in both 2015 and 2018, and the Xposure Photographer Award in 2023. He participated in the UAE Unlimited exhibition Tashweesh 2019, a collaboration with the Maraya Art Centre. He continuously curates art exhibitions in galleries and institutions, such as the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah and the Xposure International Photography Festival. Currently, he has been a lecturer at the College of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Sharjah, where he is responsible for courses in photography and video art within the Fine Arts and Media Design Program.
