The destruction of an artwork by Ai Weiwei has been condemned as a “reckless and senseless act” of vandalism by the exhibition’s curator.
A 57-year-old Czech man was arrested after smashing to pieces a large blue and white Porcelain Cube at Bologna’s Palazzo Fava museum on Friday, local reports said.
The exhibition’s curator Arturo Galansino called it an act of “vandalism” made worse because some of the works on display “explore the theme of destruction itself”.
The Chinese artist’s depiction of conflict “is a warning against the violence and injustice perpetrated by those in power, and has nothing to do with this violent, potentially dangerous, reckless and senseless act,” he added.
Mr Galansino described the suspect as “an habitual troublemaker seeking attention by damaging artists, works, monuments and institutions”.
The cube, part of the exhibition Who am I?, was destroyed at an invitation-only event before the show opened to the public, as scheduled, on Saturday.
Organisers removed the fragments, as the artist requested, and a life-sized print of the piece with a label explaining what happened was installed instead.
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Ai shared CCTV footage of the attack on his Instagram account, which showed the man hanging around the piece before moving suddenly behind it and pushing it off its display stand so it smashed on the gallery floor.
The man then held a broken fragment in a gesture of triumph, before the museum’s security staff tackled him, pulling him onto the floor.
Italian media reported the arrested man said he was an artist and was known for targeting important works of art in the past.
It is still unclear how he got into Friday’s event.