Lee Mingwei: Guernica in Sand

Overview

Lee Mingwei invites you to join him in an act of destruction. On April 23, he'll be recreating Pablo Picasso's famous Guernica (1937) at Carriageworks as part of the 20th Biennale of Sydney. Painted in oils, it's considered one of history's most powerful anti-war artworks and was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque village, during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead of oils, Mingwei will be using sand to replicate Picasso's lines exactly. Once his work is done, you'll be given permission to walk all over it. And then, Mingwei and his collaborators will pick up brooms and start sweeping the sand into new shapes and forms. As you watch the original artwork being destroyed — and a new one being created in front of your eyes — you'll find yourself contemplating the relationship between destruction and creation, between precise lines and organic forms, and between past and future.

"I used Picasso's Guernica as the departure point for a different view of the damage done when human beings are victimised," Mingwei said in his artist's statement. "Instead of simply being critical...I wanted to use the concept of impermanence as a lens for focusing on such violent events in terms of the ongoing phenomena of destruction and creation."

Image: Lee Mingwei, 'Guernica in Sand', 2006 and 2015.