Gas masks in Art
Delirium:
A disoriented
condition with
clouded consciousness,
often accompanied
by hallucinations,
illusions,
misinterpretations
of events and
a generally confused
quality with reduced capacity to
sustain attention.
(from Victor Koen's Funny Farm alphabet)
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"Delirium," by Victor Koen
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This one is called "Dusting." Victor Koen
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"Vanity Study #39" Victor Koen
Another Fine Artist who has some exceptionally creepy images of gas masks is Chris Anthony. He is most famous for his award-winning 2007 series of photographs entitled "Victims and Avengers," which caught women and children at the moment of violently overcoming their abusers. A more recent series, called Venice is, as he describes it, "a metaphor for a sinking city, deserving of nature's wrath, leaving its citizens to tread water and explore new ways to sustain life on aquatic earth." In keeping with his apparent leaning towards--or at least readiness for--apocalyptic moments of reckoning and punishment:
From chris anthony |
by Chris Anthony
From chris anthony |
by Chris Anthony
I think these are also gas masks, though I'm not an expert...
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by Chris Anthony
Fred Einaudi also seems to enjoy apocalyptic themes. He likes to place images of innocence together with images of death and dissolution, and gas masks help express his ideas quite clearly:
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"The Button Maker" Fred Einaudi
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"Chocolate Donut" Fred Einaudi
Chet Zar has tons of them in his paintings, often with the mask merging into actual flesh, as in an evolutionary mutation. Here's Clown of Doom, and Uncle Sam, and It's All Good:
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From gas masks |
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Moving into more political territory, we have street graffiti artists. A minor amount of wandering on the web gave me all kinds of commentary on why gas masks are so popular in this art form: graffiti artists often have to be very quick, so rapidly understood symbolism is a must, and the gas mask is easily seen as representative of government oppression (riot police-- so also as a symbol of preparedness for engagement with them), the effects of social violence but also environmental violence, and general dehumanization (facelessness). Greg Nog says, "It's a perfect symbol for anyone fearing the impending decay of civilization." A comment which would also fit nicely next to the Chris Anthony photos or the Fred Einaudi paintings.
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Cellist with gas mask: a photo by smiling bag production from stenciled graffiti in Tel Aviv. There's a whole series here: http://www.bigartmob.com/meta/artist/Smiling%20Bag%20Production/ .
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Bansky
Here, Nicole Dolly made her own, gothic, version of a gas mask, I assume for clubbing (or maybe just so when the day comes, you can maintain your style):
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And onward into full-blown sculpture, here is "Dystopian Art by Yanobe Kenji: Mickey the Knight:"
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This was actually a commissioned work, commissioned for Disneyland's 50th anniversary celebration in 2005. Strangely, they didn't actually end up displaying it. Yanobe Kenji has several other sort of terrifying child-centered sculptures which use gas masks. You can see his work here:
http://www.yanobe.com/works.html
Apparently, though, he actually got the idea for this sculpture by reading his history books. According to a gasmasklexikon article written by Major Robert D. Walk:
More on this creepiness is available here:
http://www.gasmasklexikon.com/Page/USA-Mil-Mikey.htm
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In case the mask itself isn't enough for you, I'll leave you with this extended version:
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Sweet dreams!
--zoe
Zoe's own mind-warpingly beautiful blog, Zoe in Wonderland is worth checking out. Go forth and dig hard, my friends.
8 comments:
the "romantic" shot is oddly, hmm, not erotic, but stirs me. The nuzzle with a gas mask. It's touching, sensual.. (Granted, I won't be going out to G.I. Joes surplus to don masks tonight -- doesn't turn me on, but stirs me..)
Quite a few other of those pictures closely remind me of some H. R. Giger type work..
The mickey mouse one though, for plain old-school bizarre, wins.. I wonder how many of the bat-shit crazy disney memorabilia collectors have those ? (since by definition, a disney memorabilia collector is bat-shit crazy..)
awesome collection. the Uncle Sam one is my favorite.
also i just read that this month is the 70th year anniversary of Wesley Dodds 1st appearance in comics. he debuted in Adventure Comics #40 which came out in July 1939. so nice tribute.
i think i might run from any house that had those mickey mouse masks in it. it's too much for my sensitivities...
What a perfect, if unintentional, tribute to my favorite character from the cape and cowl set: Wesley Dodds, the Golden Age Sandman.
Bravo to Zoe Blue for pulling this together.
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