Sipsey Street Irregulars: Perfect waste of good Kalashnikovs.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Perfect waste of good Kalashnikovs.

AK-47s get extreme makeover in new London art show.

Palestinian artist Laila Shawa said she was no stranger to the seemingly ubiquitous assault rifle.

"I'm very familiar with AK-47s so for me it was not a very strange feeling to carry the gun, but my first question to Bran was 'how many people did this gun kill?'," she told Reuters, standing next to an AK-47 covered in rhinestones and butterflies and with the barrel sprayed gold.

"In the Middle East, with the turmoil that we have, and as a Palestinian in particular, you find yourself at some point in your life having to defend yourself and that's why I know about it," she added.

Some of the artists confessed to feeling uncomfortable working on weapons once used in battle.

"While cleaning the gun in order to start working on it I went into the barrel of the gun and I found congealed blood and that brought the reality home," said Shawa.

Antony Micallef, whose large black, white and grey canvas features two AK-47s protruding from the head of an indefinable creature like horns, explained that he wanted to try and capture "that primal instinct of violence."

"For me the gun was inherently aggressive so I wanted to amplify that. I could never get away from that feeling."

"While cleaning the gun in order to start working on it I went into the barrel of the gun and I found congealed blood and that brought the reality home," said Shawa.

Yeah, right. In the barrel? Most likely she doesn't know shit from cosmoline. Anyway, it's a perfect waste of good Kalashnikovs.

9 comments:

SWIFT said...: She found congealed blood "in" the barrel? Sounds like she's been taking Drama Queen lessons from one of a couple government agencies.; September 27, 2012 at 12:58 PM
MamaLiberty said...: Starting with the fact that the gun didn't kill anyone, of course... the person who pulled the trigger probably did.

And indeed, blood in the barrel would be extremely unlikely.

But that's show biz, I guess...; September 27, 2012 at 1:48 PM
AntiCitizenOne said...: My goodness, the humanity! Fuckin' hippies need to get a job, we should just liberate those AKs from them!; September 27, 2012 at 2:06 PM
AntiCitizenOne said...: Oh the humanity!; September 27, 2012 at 2:06 PM
Anonymous said...: One could just as easily ask, "How many lives did it save?"; September 27, 2012 at 2:35 PM
Mutant Swarm said...: Wow, I'm sure glad she got those "guns off the streets."

Hey lady - did you know that some sources estimate that upward of 100 million AK-47s and their variants have been produced? And are still being produced? And that they can last up to 50 years?

Do you still feel relevant?; September 27, 2012 at 3:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Just think that Kalishnikov was an Agriculture Engineer and designed "farm implements". The AK is so darn reliable and idiot-proof that it has been used in the sandy deserts of Africa and the swamps of SouthEast Asia and everywhere in between and has been an excellent killing machine. Compare that with the M-16 Mattell Toy that jammed in Vietnam to the new and improved M-4 that has jammed in Iraq and Afghanistan and due to those jams has cost many American lives. To turn an AK-47 into a work of art is a waste of a very fine weapon. Remember, Guns don't kill people, People kill people.; September 28, 2012 at 12:27 AM
Anonymous said...: "Perfect waste of good Kalashnikovs."

True, but thankfully there are around 50 million more, of which I own 2. As for gun art, I much prefer the work of Oleg Volk, as he uses non-decommissioned arms and is a much better photographer. Here's an example:

http://olegvolk.net/gallery/technology/arms/AKSU_0388.jpg.html

Now, it's hard to tell which is more beautiful, the gun or the girl. I'd say the girl, but not by much.

Snaggle-Tooth Jones; September 28, 2012 at 4:35 PM
Anonymous said...: My first thought, how many of YOUR OWN killed each other with this gun.; September 28, 2012 at 6:30 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Perfect waste of good Kalashnikovs.

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