Hot House 2005
plywood, paper targets, hardware
Untitled Gallery, Tate Modern,
London, England
The starting point of this work, commissioned by the Tate Modern in London, as part of its Public World of Private Space series, is a book of 1950's do-it-yourself furniture designs that rendered in plywood. The furniture is placed throughout a simulated "hot house" of the type used by law enforcement agencies for creating realistic weapons training scenarios for their officers. The juxtaposition of artificial, domestic space with a menacing variety of targets results in an uneasy tension that speaks to the manipulated workings of the war on terror that exist just under the manufactured surfaces of American life.
Targets on loan from the Center for Land Use Interpretation's Target Museum, Wendover, UT