Porcelain Ai Weiwei sculpture smashed by "notorious vandal"

A man smashed Ai Weiwei's sculpture Porcelain Cube, leaving it in pieces on the floor of Bologna's Palazzo Fava in what the show's curator described as a "reckless and senseless act." A 57-year-old Czech man was arrested; he is "known" to have targeted artworks in the past, according to the Associated Press. Others describe him as a "notorious vandal."

It is still unclear how the man gained access to Friday's invitation-only event, but the museum confirmed that the exhibition opened to the public as planned on Saturday. According to the artist's wishes, the work's fragments were covered with a cloth and removed. They will be replaced by a life-sized print and a label explaining what happened. Ai shared CCTV footage of the attack on his Instagram account, which showed the man hanging around the work before moving suddenly behind it and pushing it so that it smashed on the gallery floor.

Weiwei says he was approached by the culprit two days before the incident, who demanded he read his response to Weiwei's book 1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows.

"The sound of the destruction was so loud, resembling an explosion, that I initially thought it was a terrorist attack," said Ai this morning by email. "Chaos ensued."

The artist's first concern was to ensure nobody had been harmed by the incident. "Afterward, I felt it's a pity as the artwork had been incredibly difficult to create," he said. "Crafted using the finest blue-and-white qinghua porcelain techniques from Jingdezhen, it required numerous attempts and a lot of experiments to produce."

Weiwei posted footage to his Instagram page showing the man tip over the 1m-square installation and pose victoriously over the pieces.