Curatorial Project

Exhibit Description

I will set my exhibit in a narrow hall with one end closed off by a wall. The hall will be wide enough to move around in and view the artwork from a distance, but it should also be narrow enough so that there is the sense of constricted space. The hall will only have one entrance and the walls will be painted white. Upon entering the hall, the first piece of the exhibit is a gun held up in the air, titled “Winchester Rifle Weathervane”. It will be positioned in the middle of the hall, near the entrance and it will point towards the closed end of the hallway. On the wall next to this rifle, I will have the title of my exhibit, “America: A Civilian War Zone”, and the opening text that will introduce the information I want viewers to consider during the exhibit.

A few feet away from the “Winchester Rifle Weathervane”, I will continue my exhibit by placing the artworks next to each other as seen in the exhibit map. The three artworks at the closed end of the hall are “Boy + Girl + Girl, New York” which will be placed on the left wall, “The Gun” which will be placed on the center wall, and “Illustration” which will be on the right wall. All of the pieces in this exhibit will have short description placed near it, except for the “Winchester Rifle Weathervane”, the “Illustration”, and the “Boy + Girl + Girl, New York” which will only be given basic information such as the artist, title of the work, and year it was made.

Unknown

Harold Edgerton

Antique Gun Firing, 1936

This photograph shows the immediate moment as a gun is being fired. The bullet as just left the muzzle and is surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke, showing the brute power and force of the gun. The identity of the shooter is unknown; we can only see his fingers on the trigger. A gun can be a deadly machine, no matter who’s hands it is in.

Howard Sochurek

Children with Toy Gun, 1952

Small children playing as a toy gun is pointed near them. The gun looks eerily realistic. The identity of the person holding the gun is unknown, yet we are able to see from the hands that it is a very young child. We do not see who the gun is pointed at, but the age group playing with this sinister toy mixed with the power and deadliness that real guns carry creates a sense of uneasiness.

Grace Graupe-Pillard

Boy with Gun and Skulls, 1989

Skulls fill the dark silhouette of a young boy who is pointing a rifle. Seeing a child that is holding a gun is typically an unnerving sight. The endless rows of skulls that signifying many deaths, add to the distressing mood of the painting as children are connected to death. This painting points to the tragic consequences of having relatively unregulated gun ownership; not only has it led to substantially greater deaths by guns, but it has had a destructive effect on the lives of children and students.

Grace Graupe-Pillard

Boy with a Gun – Little Girl, 1988

The unnerving paintings of a young boy holding a gun surrounds a little girl. The young girl is curled up in a ball, looking up at the repeating images of violence around her. Children in the United States are 25 times more likely to be shot and killed by guns than in other developed countries (Gregory et al.).

Man Ray

Gun with Alphabet Stencils, 1924

A white pistol is propped up, ready to be fired, in front of a forbidding dark background as alphabet stencils are dispersed all around. It is unclear if the stencils are being shot from the gun as bullets or if the gun has shot at the stencils, scattering them away. This work connects the unregulated guns ownership and its effects on education. Although school shootings represent only a fraction of the violence and deaths that result from America’s gun control problem, they have had an enormous negative effect on the culture and atmosphere in the educational world across the nation.

Ami Vitale

Untitled photograph, 2007

Hundreds of mourners have come to grieve at vigil held for the 33 victims of the Virginia Tech University shooting. Known as one of the deadliest school shooting in the US, this tragedy has not only taken many innocent lives, but has also left a traumatic impact on survivors and many more students across the nation.

Burt Barr

The Gun, 2007

The photograph shows a man holding a gun that is pointed towards the viewer. The image does not show the shooter or given any context about the setting or situation, pushing viewers to purely focus of their petrifying position of looking straight at the barrel of a gun and allowing themselves to understand the position of victims of gun violence on a personal level.

Opening Text

America: A Civilian War Zone

The United States has over 270 million guns and has had 90 mass shootings from 1996 to 2012. No other country has more than 46 million guns and 18 mass shootings (Fisher et al.). After countless tragedies and innocent lives lost to gun violence, our nation has determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth risk. While US laws have remained relatively unchanged, children in the United States are 25 times more likely to be shot and killed by guns than in other developed countries (Gregory et al.). One gun in the wrong hands can cause widespread devastation: let us not wait for another tragedy before we reawaken this issue, let us get involved now.

This exhibit includes a collection of photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculptures that showcase the forgotten power and great consequence of America’s lack of gun control. It reintroduces to us the gun, not just an inanimate object but a powerful machine capable of mass destruction. A machine that has not only already taken millions of innocent lives, but remains relatively unregulated and has the power to take your life as well. America has become a civilian war zone. Do you feel safe?

Self-Analysis:

My main goal for this exhibit is to show viewers the violence, danger, and power of a gun on a personal level. As soon as viewers enter the exhibit and they see a real rifle held up in front of them, they should begin to consider guns and the issue of gun control in America as not just an issue they see and read about in the news and media that has affected the lives of others, but instead as a real object and an existing problem that is part of their life and affecting their wellbeing. This is why, after to the “Winchester Rifle Weathervane”, the first two works that the viewer will see is “Antique Gun Firing” and “Children with Toy Gun”. The first image shows the extreme power that a gun carries. By juxtaposing this work with the photograph of children playing with guns, I wanted to introduce the idea that gun ownership should be carefully and dutifully regulated. Guns are powerful machine capable of mass destruction. They have immense power and it is our responsibility to make sure that is power is checked and prevented from going into the wrong hands.

The next four pieces of my exhibit (“Boy with Gun and Skulls”, “Boy with a Gun – Little Girl”, “Gun with Alphabet Stencils”, and “Untitled photograph”) relate to school shootings, showing viewers the consequences that the lack of regulations for guns have had through the countless murders and the negative impact on education.

The last section of the exhibit is the focal point of all my curatorial decisions because this section is used to bring the issue of gun control back to the viewer. In this section, the pieces: “Boy + Girl + Girl, New York”, “The Gun”, and “Illustration” are placed on three adjacent walls. The three walls carrying the artworks surround the viewer, as each artwork carries one image of a gun being pointed at the viewer’s space. Viewers should feel uncomfortable as they are forced to look down the barrel of a gun in all directions with no escape. The works throughout the exhibit showcase the tragedy and danger of unregulated gun laws in deep level, but the three artworks in this section demonstrates to the viewers that this problem is impacting their own lives as well.  This exhibit is structured so that it only has one entrance, therefore as viewers exit the exhibit through that entrance, they must go through the previous artworks again, now looking at them through a personal view.

I decided to place artwork descriptions on the wall next to the artworks. The descriptions for “Winchester Rifle Weathervane”, the “Illustration”, and the “Boy + Girl + Girl, New York” only include basic information about the artwork because I wanted viewers to observe the work and take the time to think about it, instead of reading a description and moving on.  I provide artwork descriptions on the remaining pieces because I want to guide my readers thoughts and feelings as they view each piece and relate to others.

Works Cited

Fisher, Max, and Josh Keller. “What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 7 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html.

Gregory, Sean, and Chris Wilson. “Gun Violence in the U.S.: 6 Real Ways We Can Help Reduce It.” Time, Time Inc., 22 Mar. 2018, www.time.com/5209901/gun-violence-america-reduction/.