Lessons by Ben Turnbull
Lesson(s) by Ben Turnbull are carved from wooden desktops.
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from the artist:
Ben Turnbull is fascinated by the global dominance of American culture, and his works unsettling effects result from re-presenting the toys of our innocent youth in symbolic forms that reveal the shocking truths about war, death and guns in the world’s most powerful country. Above all they take a satirical look at the lengths that the country’s political elites go to in order to control and manipulate the way we think, from our first days of play to the last time we cast our vote. Turnbull is a passionate critic of the contemporary American political system, and explains why toys are central to his work: ‘Force fed on violence, abused by a controlling superpower and blackmailed through patriotism, the public are ultimately as disposable as the toys they once played with’.
Ben Turnbull was born in 1974. He lives and works in London.
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via todayandtomorrow
Beautifully executed. The “firearms as emblem of oppressive hegemony” thing is starting to wear a little thin for me (see the Chris Crites installation at Ampersand on Alberta Street in Portland week of Nov.2 for another example). Of course, I’m an unapologetic raging lefty gun nut, so what do I know…
yeah, this guy’s stuff is pretty thick with it – you should take a look at the rest of his stuff – the pieces above are ridiculous in their execution, but the rest of his stuff is just a bit over the top