“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”       ~Twyla Tharp

 

Left: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, Dancing (1893). Private Collection

Ready, Fire…Aim!

Ijust love the way advertisers look for tie-ins between their products and any random current event. “George Washington loved independence; on his birthday you’ll love the freedom the new Jeep Wrangler gives you.” “Spring training means that baseball season is nearly upon us; hit it out of the park with the new Subway Tuna Melt sandwich!” “You rely on that carpool to get you to work on time; make sure your colon is just as regular with new Yoplait Greek Yogurt!” artes fine arts magazine

Paired association is an old marketing trick, and we are constantly being made to feel that if, by virtue of their celebrity status, so-and-so offers implicit approval for a purchase, our sense of self-worth will be somehow be elevated to their level—or at least marginally enhanced. But none of these sales tactics offends on such a grand scale as when art is used to tout a product that is thoroughly reprehensible in its own right. And by this I mean firearms. Don’t get me wrong. I am not against gun ownership. I own a shotgun which I enjoy using for skeet shooting. But, consider this recent ad by Armalite, an Illinois gun maker, linking Michelangelo’s David—appearing to hold its latest version of an assault-style weapon—with the tag line, “AR-50A1, A Work of Art.” The shell it fires is the size of a felt tipped marker and it has one purpose only: to obliterate whatever it hits…not any ‘hunter’s’ objective.

The original David is a coveted symbol of Florence Italy, where versions of it are ubiquitous throughout the city, and throughout all of Italy for that matter. As such, the image is trademark protected and the Italian government will apply pressure to the manufacturer to pull the ad off the market. But, in this Internet age, the promotional image can readily be viewed. And no effort by the authorities will undo the damage done to the dignity of this work of art.

In decades past, Santa has sold us guns, just like movie celebrities and doctors sold us cigarettes, alcohol and gas guzzling cars. Those were simpler times—dare I say—and the facts about smoking, drinking and climate change were not widely understood. Famous images by famous artists have been invoked to help us rebuild our economy in the wake of the Great Depression with the WPA, or buy war bonds with posters recalling our constitutional rights, as appropriated from the Norman Rockwell’s series, The Four Freedoms.

Art has the capacity to make us feel good about a purchase. We all understand how it works and have developed a survivalist immunity against the subtly persuasive drumbeat of what once referred to by the classic synecdoche, ‘Madison Avenue.’

But when it comes to appropriating a classic sculpture, The David—best known in Biblical history for using his sling shot to defeat a much larger enemy—the gun industry marketing folks have gone too far. The effectiveness of public outcry may be viewed as merely slings and arrows against the powerful weapons industry. But my own view is that the consuming public needs fewer instruments of destruction like the Armalite AR-50A1, and—in every sense of the word—more Davids!

Thanks, Armalite, for reminding us all of an important lesson in core values.

Thanks for reading ARTES magazine,

Richard J. Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor*

*Recently elected as a member of the International Art Critics Association