I’d argue it had one winning move, but it wasn’t going to happen. They could have protected it and said they agree with his right to speak (or something more UK; since there is no freedom of speech). The winning move is to recognize that people have issues with the actions and are discussing it —even if this is bullshit.
If I were in charge of it, and had the freedom to do anything, I’d do something like saying: “We recognize people’s frustration. We will protect this piece for [some amount of weeks] but any further vandalism will be removed. However, we will host an exhibit for others to produce art expressing their opinions and will display them, within reason and legal boundaries.”
This would remove almost all the power and give people a place to vent. However, it’s not very fascist, which is about controlling people’s ability to speak against you, so it’s not going to happen. This piece is only powerful because it isn’t allowed. As soon as it is then people stop giving a fuck. If they were actually intelligent then this is what they’d do. However, if they were intelligent they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess to begin with.
I’d argue it had one winning move, but it wasn’t going to happen. They could have protected it and said they agree with his right to speak (or something more UK; since there is no freedom of speech). The winning move is to recognize that people have issues with the actions and are discussing it —even if this is bullshit.
That would have invited more graffiti. Which IMO wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I can also understand the potential problems with it.
If I were in charge of it, and had the freedom to do anything, I’d do something like saying: “We recognize people’s frustration. We will protect this piece for [some amount of weeks] but any further vandalism will be removed. However, we will host an exhibit for others to produce art expressing their opinions and will display them, within reason and legal boundaries.”
This would remove almost all the power and give people a place to vent. However, it’s not very fascist, which is about controlling people’s ability to speak against you, so it’s not going to happen. This piece is only powerful because it isn’t allowed. As soon as it is then people stop giving a fuck. If they were actually intelligent then this is what they’d do. However, if they were intelligent they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess to begin with.