Endangered Guernica

File this one under the "strangely paranoid yet somehow appealing article" tab.

In his essay titled "A Symbol of Freedom and a Target for Terrorists" that appeared at the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman speaks about the dangers that our most beloved pieces of art face every day at the different museums where they are being exhibited.

Well, he uses The Guernica as a prime example of a masterpiece that does not count with enough protection in case someone wants to damage it.

Here you have the parts of the article that refer to The Guernica:

So the other day I stopped into the Reina Sofía here to check on Picasso’s “Guernica.” The threat of violence is nothing new in Spain, where Muslim terrorists blew up commuter trains a few years ago, killing many, and where the threat of killings by Basque extremists (there was a bomb attack in Bilbao on Tuesday, a truce with the government having broken down in June) has again become part of the daily background noise of life.

Only a simple stanchion, and a discreet alarm, as I discovered when leaning too close, separates the public from Picasso’s famous mural about a midcentury act of terror: the German bombing of the ancient Basque town of Guernica in 1936. The picture presides over a big gallery of related Picassos, each a target, I suppose, if you adopt the mindset that terrorists, and those who would exploit terrorism, like to foster.

Twenty-six years ago, when the painting arrived in Madrid from New York, it was installed in a huge bulletproof glass cage at an annex of the Prado, flanked by soldiers guarding what had become an international symbol of antifascism. Picasso had wanted it to go to Spain only when Generalissimo Francisco Franco was gone. To anyone who remembered it at the Museum of Modern Art, the sight at the Prado was sad and shocking. The picture looked forlorn, suffocated. It was almost impossible to see.

It had already been vandalized at the Museum of Modern Art when a small-time artist named Tony Shafrazi sprayed the words “Kill Lies All” on it in 1974. In the creepy, amnesiac way that celebrity and money operate in America and in the art world, Mr. Shafrazi went on to become a rich and powerful art dealer.

The painting moved some years ago from the Prado to the Reina Sofía and was finally let out of its glass prison. I’ve never loved “Guernica,” to tell the truth. Its lofty ambition obscures the detriments of its telegraphed emotions and inflated billboard-size Cubism, but time only adds to its patina of glory for the crowds that come to commune with it and who can now get almost, but not quite, close enough to touch the picture.

Proximity is the cost, and virtue, of a civil and democratic society. We run the risk that some lunatic or self-promoter will violate the public trust of an open space because we value that space as a democratic ideal. Part of what’s beautiful about an art museum, aside from what’s on view, is that it implies trust — it lets us stand next to objects that supposedly represent civilization at its best and, in so doing, flatters us for respecting our common welfare.

What I want to say to Mr. Kimmelman is that I am profoundly grateful to him for the high concept (not exactly from the artistic value point of view though) he has of The Guernica and his concern that something may happen to the iconic painting.

But I also would like to remind him that while it stays in Madrid it will be surrounded by its greatest enemies. For starters, it is on display at the Queen Sofia museum and I would like to remind Mr. Kimmelman of a small detail, the museum is named after Sofia Borbón, the wife of Juan Carlos Borbón.

And who is Juan Carlos Borbón?

A fella given a lifetime job by Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator that ordered the bombing of Gernika (and Durango a couple of days earlier) because he wanted to murder as many Basques as the Nazi weaponry would allow him.

So you see Mr. Kimmelman, The Guernica is at the heart of the same fascist Madrid that the painting denounces. So, it would be a lot safer lets say, in Bilbao at the Guggenheim Museum, protected by the same Basque society that has a powerful emotional link to the painting that is a reminder of one of the worst crimes committed against the Basques by the Spaniards.

Here you have his conclusion:

Thanks to its historic authority, the aura of “Guernica” has become like a bubble or halo that psychologically separates it from the gazing mobs, never mind that there’s no longer a glass wall. Standing before it, you can almost imagine that it has, historically speaking, passed beyond harm — that to attack it now would only make the picture a martyr, that it’s indestructible.

Of course it’s not.

No, is not indestructible, one never knows when a fascist Spanish youth will cause harm to it, I mean, just in the past few weeks a 16 year old boy was stabbed to dead while opposing a Neo Nazi parade, a Colombian man was beaten by four youths that yelled "Long Live Spain!" while they were kicking him, an African youngster was so badly hurt that he is quadriplegic for life after being attacked by a gang and a teenage girl was kicked on the head in the subway by a drunken thug. All of those crimes were committed by Spanish citizens that suscribe to the Francisco Franco/Partido Popular ideology, yet, they do not get mentioned in your article.

Yes Mr. Zimmelman, there is that other violence, do not think that a certain reference to Basque violence escaped my attention.

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