Reason or Instinct?

Created for the phenomenal "ARTISTS OF A DIFFERENT CALIBER" exhibition, curated by Boris Bally. Organized in conjunction with Pittsburgh's 'Goods For Guns' program, 75 street-collected handguns were disarmed and given to artists to create artwork out of, 'beating swords into ploughshares', so to speak. The statement accompanying 'Reason or Instinct?' is reproduced below.

"Consider the handgun: a beautiful design that has survived for hundreds of years (largely unaltered!) collides with an incredible capacity for destruction and violence. It seemed appropriate, then, to highlight this dichotomy by intimately involving an innocent creature with this raw and elegant human invention.
Malevolent organism or absolved firearm?"

 

REASON OR INSTINCT? 1997

Collection of Janet McCall, PA

Contact printer box, victorian wooden molding, 18th-century book cover, wooden picture matte, etched & oxidized brass, handgun, cardinal, eagle claw, map, map tacks, slug, sea urchin spines, piano wire, drawer pulls, basswood, conservation glass, screws,
steel engravings, soil.

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