I.
Longtime readers will recall that I have written about hoplophilia elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark, arguing that you don't have to own a gun or be a member of the shooting fraternity to acknowledge the fetishistic appeal of firearms: like it or not, guns are stylish, guns are cool, and guns are deadly.
In short, guns are sexy and excite many different types of people; from Melanie Blanchard, the morbidly curious young female protagonist in Michel Tournier's 'Death and the Maiden' [1]; to the socially and sexually awkward loan manager Mark Corrigan, played by David Mitchell, in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show [2].
II.
Andy Warhol was an artist who understood better than most the fascination of firearms and the important role that guns play within American life and culture. He was also someone who experienced the pain and trauma of being shot and almost killed by a madwoman with a snub-nosed pistol [3] and was haunted by the fact of his own mortality (death being a theme he returned to many times throughout his career).
So no suprise that his series of paintings entitled Guns (1981-82) should be as brilliant as it is.
I know that many people still think of Warhol primarily as the artist who painted soup cans and portraits of the rich and famous, but he produced so much more - and so much more interesting - work than this; not least his paintings of guns, knives, skulls, and shadows.
Rejecting the idea that his work was a form of social criticism or heavy with symbolic meaning, Warhol allows us to admire his pictures and the objects they depict as beautiful in themselves. And maybe that's the genius of Pop Art.
Notes
[1] The short story 'Death and the Maiden' can be found in Michel Tournier, The Fetishist and Other Stories, trans. Barbara Wright (Collins, 1983), pp. 109-128. For my post from December 2020 inspired by the tale, click here.
[2] See 'Jeremy's Mummy', the fourth episode of the fifth series of the British sitcom Peep Show. Directed by Becky Martin, it first aired on 23 May, 2008. To watch the scenes featuring 'Gunny', please click here. To read my post inspired by the episode (also published in December 2020), click here.
[3] On 3 June 1968 the radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas fired at Warhol three times with a .32 calibre pistol. The first two shots missed, but the third hit its target and penetrated multiple organs. Warhol survived the incident - after undergoing five hours of surgery - but was never quite the same again, the shooting having a profound effect on his later life and work.
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