Sunday, 29 March 2026, 3.30 pm

Art and Destruction: A conversation

It's The Real Thing – Basel Documentary Platform 
Free admission, no booking required, in German

With: Manuel Gerst (artist), Roland Wetzel (Director Museum Tinguely) and others.
Moderation: Boris Nikitin (It's The Real Thing)

 

Jean Tinguely was one of the first to do it: destroy the artwork as artwork. The playful destructive force here is characterised by the unexpected and the new.  There is an idea behind this that has always played a role in the avant-garde: sometimes something has to be torn down in order for the possible to emerge.

However, where art forges ahead, capitalism is never far behind. Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’ a basic prerequisite for growth and progress. It is a concept that he developed further from 1911 onwards and which today, under the term ‘disruption’, finally merges libertarian politics and pop culture. Its symbol comes from a cult horror film of the 1970s and heavy metal culture: the chainsaw.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a form of bizarre male cult, but destruction and disruption are not foreign to feminist or queer art either. Demolition and new beginnings are sometimes closely related. 

On the occasion of Manuel Gerst's work Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), we ask: What is the fascination with destruction? What is perhaps its necessity?

 

Duration: 60 minutes

 

It’s The Real Thing – Basler Dokumentartage 5 is supported by: Swisslos-Fonds Basel-Stadt, Swisslos Basellandschaft, Pro Helvetia, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung and Christoph Merian Stiftung.