Destruction Rites: Ephemerality and Demolition in Postwar Visual Culture

In the early sixties, crowds gathered to watch rites of destruction – from the demolition derby where makeshift cars crashed into each other for sport, to concerts where musicians destroyed their instruments, to performances of self-destructing machines staged by contemporary artists. Destruction, in both its playful and fearsome aspects, was ubiquitous in the new Atomic Age. This complicated subjectivity was not just a way for people to find catharsis amid the fears of annihilation and postwar trauma, but also a complex instantiation of ideological crisis—in a time with some seriously conflicted political myths.