The Fear of Art: How Censorship Becomes Iconoclasm

Every act of censorship is also an act of iconoclasm. Together they constitute one of the oldest paradoxes of image making and of figuration. To make an image is both to want it and to fear it. The more it is desired, the more it seems contra naturam , and so is feared. It often has a vitality that is startlingly at odds with both its materiality and its concept. To parse individual episodes of censorship and iconoclasm is to uncover the roots of both the fear of images and the fear of art. But each of the many motives for censorship and iconoclasm testify, above all, to the impossibility of escaping it.