There are many ways to destroy a statue. In 2003, a weightlifter took a sledgehammer to the giant statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. In 1966, an IRA dissident put a bomb inside Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin. During the so-called Leninfall in 2014, arc welders, saws and even tractors were used to pull down some of the 5,500 statues of Lenin in Ukraine. “With enough angry people,” said Hanna Bondar, Kiev’s former deputy chief architect, “you just need your hands.”
Even Antony Gormley’s work has suffered destruction. In 2015, the British sculptor’s cast-iron figure LAND came down in a storm, toppling into the sea at Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset. Gormley said he was thrilled, citing it as proof of the work’s “dynamic relationship” with nature.
