Guns As Art

[Speedo66]

Article and photos in todays NY Times about an artist using self produced sculptures of guns and knives as art. No negative spin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/nyregion/21musect.html

 

[Rembrandt]

.....Mr. Lazzarini said that he decided to distort guns and knives as part of an extended meditation on fear and violence in American society. “I found myself always going back to the guns and the knives as a kind of proxy for shooting and stabbing,” he said.

Funny, I see guns and knives as an extended meditation of fond memories of my childhood. Guess art says different things to different people....

 

[Apple a Day]

Da Vinci is dead.
John Moses Browning was an artist. Leonardo made guns and other machines that actually worked. These hacks just slap together random pieces of simulated things and pretend... which is a pretty good but unintended statement about where society is nowadays.
I think I'll go to the range and do some 'performance art'. I'll call it "little holes in a big sheet of paper'.

 

[cchris]

I remember art being defined as something that has no purpose other than itself. If guns can be used for shooting or defense, and knives can be used for cooking or stabbing, can they really be "art" by that definition?

My definition of "art" is a bullseye in a target at 100 yards with a pistol.

 

[hso]

But I am not entirely convinced that social commentary supersedes the artist’s desire to create formal studies in the distortion of an object through obsessive attention to detail and a manipulative mode of display.

Clearly, the show would have meant something very different were the artist to have focused on more innocuous objects. But here — as in previous depictions of violins, telephones and chairs — it is the manipulation that attracts; the subject matter remains secondary.

Not the first time an artist has used firearms a medium of expression.

Of course there's more than one way to take "guns as art".

 

[Tim the student]

I'd rather have those on my wall than a picture of some guy taking a crap.

As the OP noted, at least there was no negative spin about how these pieces might somehow start a crimewave or some nonsense like that.

 

[RyanM]

Y'know, if the economy were better, it'd be fun to try and come up with a line of "fantasy guns," like the cheap crappy fantasy knives out there. Design fantasy and sci fi themed guns, hire artists and writers to make posters and backstories and stuff for 'em, all the same schtick as the fantasy knife market.

Probably wouldn't go anywhere or make any money, but it'd be interesting.

 

[hso]

RyanM,

You might be shocked what with most people's only familiarity being with games and movies.

 

[RyanM]

Possibly. The main problem would be keeping the price low enough. The flip side of that lack of familiarity is, I figure the target market for fantasy guns would be unwilling to spend more than $200-300. Not because those kind of people couldn't afford more, they just typically somehow have this idea in their head that you can get a full auto H&K rifle for $500.

So with that price range, you'd be limited to single shot break opens and possibly falling blocks, which take low pressure cartridges.

I figure that a company like that, the best bet would be to get as many movie licenses as possible to produce real firing prop replicas (there are a lot of people out there who'd kill for a firing replica of the Blade Runner "blaster," that one would be a gold mine). Licensed guns would be the bread and butter, with occasional limited runs of fantasy pieces just to keep things interesting.

But, there would also be the inevitable public/political outcry that fantasy guns are somehow "irresponsible." As if there's anything stopping someone from buying any other gun just because it "looks cool," or it was in some movie. We need laws that say that all guns should be ugly! Hot pink and day-glo orange! For the children!