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March 29, 2024

Art exhibit sheds light on gun violence in America

By SARAH Y. KIM | April 13, 2017

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Courtesy of Kei Ito Almost 40 people sat around the pop-up exhibit, which featured rifles created from household objects.

Sculptor and printmaker David Hess displayed a collection of mock assault rifles in the Levering Glass Pavilion on Monday afternoon. Titled the Gun Show, the pop-up exhibition centered around a panel discussion, during which nearly 40 people gathered in a circle around the rifles and related their personal experiences with guns and gun violence.

The exhibition was co-hosted by the Hopkins Museums Club and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The show was funded by the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Student Grant Program.

The rifles are life-sized and assembled with various household objects, such as shoes and sewing machines, which Hess explained came from his “hoarding.”

Hess asserted that the objects he used to create the mock guns were chosen based on their shape, rather than chosen to convey a message.

“The objects are made of barrels and triggers and stocks,” he said. “They’re clearly made from abstractions. There is a little bit of irony here and there, but it’s mostly form I’m playing with.”

Hess described the rifles as being human-like in their form, especially when the weapons are laid out on the ground.

“It’s very intentional that they look like real bodies, particularly when they’re laid out in these long lines,” he said. “It’s a memorial in a way and kind of scary — that a thing that is so much activated by a person is not attached to a person. It’s lying on the ground.”

Visitors were allowed to hold the mock rifles, which were laid out on a stretch of white cloth in the center of the Pavilion, and get their pictures taken.

“When you pick them up you have a weird extension of your arm,” Hess said. “They’re heavy. You feel the weight of them. When you pick them up, you kind of feel this weird thing that everyone has been talking about: power. Also fear.”

Hess came up with the idea for his project in the ‘90s, but did not begin working on it until after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. He admitted that he has struggled to understand why the Sandy Hook shooting struck him more profoundly than other instances of gun violence.

“In Baltimore there are 300 murders a year,” he said. “I feel some degree of — I wouldn’t say embarrassment — but why wasn’t I moved by that? What was it about Sandy Hook that was so horrific in my mind at the time?”

Hess, who has never had firsthand experience with gun violence, said that his strong reaction to the Sandy Hook shooting may have stemmed from memories of his daughter going to kindergarten.

“That said, my white daughter going off to kindergarten looked like those kids,” he said. “I think that was just my impulse as a parent, to be like: Wow, this is so crazy that this happened in this suburban community that looks a lot like the community I raise my kids in.”

Overtime, he felt that there was a racial aspect to his reaction and people’s emotional reactions to gun violence as well. Hess said it may stem from the ways people dehumanize each other because they look different.

“There are 300 lives lost in Baltimore city, and it’s really crazy how, because I’m a white guy, I don’t think about those lives,” Hess said. “And it’s not about importance. It’s a way we think about each other. I don’t think I’m alone in that.”

Hess asserted that as an artist he does not have a specific goal, and that his exhibition is not meant to convey a specific political message or stance. He described the importance of holding a panel discussion.

“It’s accomplishing pretty much everything in a conversation like this,” he said. “The conversation is so complicated and so in a lot of ways is so much bigger than this project.”

Previously Hess interacted with viewers by interviewing people he passed in the street, rather than holding group discussions.

“I’ve done these events where people in New York City are walking by and we interview them and stuff but really don’t spend the time to listen and talk to them, because you’re standing on the street corner,” he said. “Maybe this becomes the new format, to tell you the truth.”

He described Monday’s exhibition as the best event he and his team have had so far.

“Looking around at this incredibly wonderful diverse group of people, it’s pretty amazing sitting in a circle and feeling this energy here,” Hess said. “It is really interesting hearing people say it for themselves. And it is weird too, sitting in this circle of guns pointing at ourselves.”

Alumna Mary Yen came to the exhibition expecting to see references for her gun drawings, and was surprised to see the rifles were made of household objects. She found herself struck by the idea of how commonplace guns are in American households.

“It did get me kind of confused. I didn’t really notice at first [that they were mock rifles],” Yen said. “I thought they were all legitimate guns because that’s what we were looking for. It set for the mood for how strange guns might be in our society.”

Hess recalled how a teacher in Nashville once told him that the project must be “so much fun” and described the project as “whimsical.”

“Ultimately it has never felt whimsical to me at all,” Hess said. “It has felt incredibly emotional to me, kind of this weird devious exploration of a dark side of humanity. I’ve never really been there at all, never really experienced gun violence first hand.”


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