Detroit MONA goes kaBOOM!, 2002
The extreme to which an authorised intervention can go and yet still meet with institutional approval was shown in 2002, when the Detroit Museum of New Art staged a show kaBoom!, with the announcement, "Over the course of the exhibition, museum visitors will be invited to smash, drop, throw and slash artworks..."[2] The show was scheduled for two months, but by the end of the first night had been totally destroyed by visitors:
"They even destroyed the pedestals and wall shelves," one museum staffer shrugged in disbelief. Fires were set in isolated galleries and a wrecking ball for one display had been removed from its chain and used instead as a bowling ball, taking out an installation as well as the corner of one wall. "In a twisted way, it was a wild success," MONA?s director Jef Bourgeau says the morning after, on a surprisingly bright note as he wades through the carnage and debris.[3] This follows the precedent of the Dadaists. At one of their shows, visitors were invited to smash the exhibits with an axe.
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