In the week of the increasingly embarrassing Turner Prize, here (I found it via these people) is news of some art that Samizdata can really get behind:
Since 1998 Italian artist Antonio Riello has been making very special weapons as artworks. Assault rifles, pistols, machine guns, carbines, sub-machine guns, hand grenades, rocket launchers and any kind of contemporary military guns are restyled by the artist as high fashion accessories for sophisticated ladies.
And for a certain sort of gentleman, I’m guessing. (Although those ball and chain things at the top of the picture collection don’t look to me like they’re for self defence at all.)
Weapons from all over the World are used: American M16, Russian Kalashnikov, Israelian UZI, Italian Beretta and many others. Recently also armours in steel, plastic and Kevlar are made to protect ladies against urban dangers.
Globalisation. Good.
In this artproject the glamour of fashion system is mixed with the common perverse and morbid fascination for weaponry.
Yeah yeah. They have to say that.
These works – made using leopard skins, brightly lacquered colours, jewels, furs, trendy fabrics and special technological appliances – play along the thin line between fashion and trash.
Miami Vice aesthetics you might say.
LADIES WEAPONS are a sort of hybrids born from the most outstanding contemporary Italian features: the obsession for personal security and the passion for elegance and fashion.
I would have preferred passion for personal security and obsession for elegance and fashion, but like I say, they have to say that guns are bad. This is Italy remember, not Arizona.
Every artwork has a name of a woman (“CLAUDIA”, “TAMARA”,….) and exists only in one exemplar.
Where is allowed the artist uses real weapons, in the countries where is forbidden artworks are based on perfect replicas.
“Where is allowed.” There’s your problem. And of course, “perfect replicas” are only allowed “where is allowed” also. This art is presumably illegal wherever replica guns are flaunted in places “where is not allowed”. Oh well, it all adds to the buzz.
My guess is that the Art Nazis, to coin a phrase, won’t allow this stuff to qualify, because it is itself far, far too “obsessive” about guns to be allowed into polite Euro-society. As “art”, it will never catch on. It’s typical Euro-trash half-baked goodness/uselessness, in other words. More work is needed.
This guy should stop titting about with “only in one examplar” nonsense, go to America, and mass produce these things. Forget art. Embrace the gun culture, and help to make it (even more) fashionable.
When he gets there, he will course have to deal with the fact that in America they presumably have a lot of this kind of kit already, selling healthily (not to say obsessively), with no thought of art at all.
(By the way, and flying off at somewhat of a tangent, “Art Nazis” is a phrase I recently invented, which I think may have a future. I say invented, but I googled for it after thinking of it for myself, and I did find this use of the phrase, to describe the idiot/villain art critic at the centre of Tom Wolfe’s splendid little book The Painted Word.)
When he gets there, he will course have to deal with the fact that in America they presumably have a lot of this kind of kit already, selling healthily (not to say obsessively
Not that I have ever heard of. Women are turning into a real growth market, especially for handguns. I should think this guy could make millions here in the US – his timing and his idea are perfect.
‘When he gets there, he will course have to deal with the fact that in America they presumably have a lot of this kind of kit already, selling healthily (not to say obsessively), with no thought of art at all.’
I’ve never seen anything like this stuff on sale in the US.
There are a few handgun lines which are specifically pitched at women – S&W’s ‘LadySmith’ line is probably the most well-known – but most of the features of those have to do with smaller grips, better ergonomics and lighter weight. I think the only appearance features they ever had were pastel-coloured grips and some appearance engraving. Nothing at all like this . . .
I predict that his product will sink like a rock in the US if sold as anything other than art – for which there is, no doubt, a market. Most people who carry a handgun for cause are concerned with function and ease – not appearance. Besides, since most jurisdictions require concealed carry – who would you show off your Dolce & Gabbana heater to?
I want the handgun makers to come out with a handgun with a camouflage finish which matches clothing and breaks up the distinctive outline – a sort of Mossy Denim & Dockers. Leopard skin? No thanks – I want my gun to blend in, not to stand out.
llater,
llamas
I don’t know; they might actually sell with women. Can’t you see a woman, among friends who know she carries, pulling out her pink-checkered-grip Baretta and showing it to them?
On the humorous side, it would be hilarious to replace the weapons models in, for instance, Counter-Strike with these. It would make the “DEAGLE LOL” crowd go insane.
I had a firearms instructor seriously suggest that I should buy a Lady Smith. And load it with “safety bullets”.
Safety bullets are so called because they won’t punch through walls and hurt somebody in the next room. But they’re basically a wicked gauge shot shell, and they chew the hell out of human flesh at close range. The back of the packet talks about the effects of safety bullets on “meat” – as though they expect you to use them for target shooting on Virginia hams.
The rationale, anyway, is if I ever found myself pleading a manslaughter case (and, yes, in parts of the US you will be put on trial for self defense killings), you can tell the jury, “but it was a girl’s gun, and it was loaded with safety bullets!”
It just sounds so much more…caring.
A leopardskin FAL called Jolanda? A pink M16, Margherita? I wouldn’t rule out such items taking off among the UK art crowd, because there’s a big gap between their contempt for guns & the notion of armed self defence on the one hand, and shock-chic on the other: I can see the Saatchis putting them on display.
Then again, such is the state of government-sponsored paranoia about weapons that flaunting a pink grenade on your combats, or tucked into your cleavage, would very likely bring an Armed Response Team down on you like a ton of bricks, and if they didn’t shoot you (hell, you can get shot around here for carrying a chair leg in a plastic bag) you’d still come in for a severe tongue lashing and possible prosecution. As for parading through Chelsea with a Dadaist Uzi over your shoulder, the consequences don’t bear thinking about.
Alfred, sorry but sometimes on this blog I get the feeling I’ve slipped into a parallel universe where the language is familiar but incomprehensible. What does your second paragraph mean? Please translate.
S. Weasel wrote:
‘I had a firearms instructor seriously suggest that I should buy a Lady Smith.”
It’s not a bad suggestion, for a carry gun.
The most popular LadySmith is/has been the 3913 and variants, which is basically a cut-down, rounded-off version of the venerable single-stack Model 39-2 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
This idea was first brought to fruit by an outfit called ASP, which build custom Model 39 cut-downs as carry guns. It gave you a slim, easily-concealed package that still held 7 rounds of 9mm. Your humble servant built several of these in the late 1980’s, both on Model 39 frames and on Model 439’s, for those who wanted the added capacity of a double-stack and were prepared to tolerate the added size.
I still have one of those cut-down 39’s that I made, and carry it from time to time, because I have a particular fondness for the 39 and that’s my usual carry gun. If I didn’t have the cut-down, I’d buy a 3913 or 3914 and carry it. What do I care that it has grey stocks and the word ‘LadySmith’ engraved on the side?
llater,
llamas
My wee wifey is perfectly happy with her classic top-break Rossi .32 revolver (no longer in production), in basic black with faux woodgrain plastic grips. I doubt the home invader she shot at would have run any faster had it matched her current taste in ghetto fabulous airbrushed nails.
Tony,
Counter-Strike is a team-based first person shooter that comes bundled with Half-Life. CS is supposed to be a very realistic team match game that pits terrorists vs. counter-terrorists. You play over the internet and choose which side you want to be on when you hook up to a server.
The game is very popular with teenage boys, many of whom have little to no experience with guns. However, the Counter-Strike weapons are based on real weapons and are purposefully realistic in terms of relative power, accuracy, range, etc. Scroll down the above page to see why I made the remark about replacing the weapon models.
This leads some of these clowns to assume they know something about guns because they get to know the guns in the game (you make money if you successfully complete missions and can then buy better and more expensive guns). One of the most popular is the Desert Eagle, which CS dorks refer to as the “deagle”.
Go on any gun forum and post a thread like “I’m looking for a new handgun. Any suggestions?” Within 5 posts someone will have posted “DEAGLE” or “DEAGLE LOL” or something like that. It used to be CS geeks trying to act like they knew something about firearms, but now people just mimic them as a joke.
target shooting on Virginia hams
mmmm, Virginia hams . . .
This idea is not really new. See: Good Guns are Pretty Guns
Also the Kel-Tec P32 is available in various colors. I have seen a pink one but I don’t see that as currently available. You might have to settle for light blue.
Browning used to build a very fine semi-auto shotgun called the Double Automatic or Twelvette that was available in a range of arresting receiver colours, including red, brown, green and a very eye-catching electric blue. For some reason, the coloured versions were never popular with shooters, which makes them hard to find and very collectable. Anyone got a blue one they want to sell me . . . ?
Desert Eagle? Don’t make me laugh. If I need a jack handle, there’s one behind the seat of my truck. I could never understand what people saw in that thing – over-sized, over- weight, and almost impossible to get a good grip on. But each to his own, I guess . . .
llater,
llamas
Desert Eagle? Don’t make me laugh.
llamas, that’s the whole point. These CS kiddies would recommend a hand cannon like the Desert Eagle to people who asked a serious question about buying a handgun (often for concealment).
That’s why someone saying “DEAGLE” has become an instant indication of a pretender who knows Jack and shit about guns (and Jack left town). And they almost assuredly got their ideas from Counter-Strike (where the weight and size of guns has no bearing).
Alfred, thanks for explaining. I see, Desert Eagle – well, I echo llamas’s feelings: when we still had handguns here, a fellow member of my club had one, but then he’s the sort of guy who has to have anything that makes a very loud noise. He also had (among a plenitude of weapons) a T/C Contender in 45-70, not at all pleasant to fire and wildly impractical, but it sure was noisy…
Watch out for the art nazis! They have discovered that modern art is useful for torture.
Actually, I had quite a bit of fun with an article that was seriously aghast at such a use of modern art.
Personally, I find torture more horrifying than art, but heck, I’m just an ordinary guy.
The idea is definitely not new. HK have produced some odd machine guns over the years, presumably on commission.
so therefore YOU didn’t INVENT the phrase art nazis, now did you!
tom wolfe did.
I wish Antonio Riello would do custom stuff, or even mass-produce his work here in the US. I just got my first handgun, and I think that making the grips pink leopard print with rhinestones would help me bond with it… you know… feel more comfortable. Perhaps a skull out of rhinestones… just so I keep it in perspective. I’m quite serious. So long as it still has stopping ability, I think fashionable fire power is a good thing.
As a woman looking into purchasing a handgun, I would love to be able to find one that has more feminine qualities. I don’t want it jewel-encrusted like Paris Hilton’s cellphone, but at least with a little color to differentiate my little beauty from my husband’s. Something personalized. I have been looking online to see if I can find any ladies accessories for a S&W .38 special 642, but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
As a woman looking into purchasing a handgun, I would love to be able to find one that has more feminine qualities. I don’t want it jewel-encrusted like Paris Hilton’s cellphone, but at least with a little color to differentiate my little beauty from my husband’s. Something personalized. I have been looking online to see if I can find any ladies accessories for a S&W .38 special 642, but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.