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Robert Longo Untitled (Bullet Hole in Window, January 7, 2015), 2015
Charcoal on mounted paper
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Mat Collishaw Bullet Hole, 1988
‘Bullet Hole depicts a horrific wound to the top of a human scalp, the hair of the recipient plastered to the sides to reveal the entry point. Collishaw appropriated the original photograph from a pathology textbook; despite the work’s name, the wound was in fact caused by an ice pick. He then enlarged the photograph, creating fifteen transparencies each mounted on its own lightbox.’
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Walt Creel Rabbit, 2011
‘Walt Creel creates original artwork with a deadly weapon. The Birmingham, Alabama-based artist uses a .22-caliber rifle to make pointilist portraits of southern wildlife onto 4×6-foot aluminum panels.’
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Christine Borland Shoes with .44 mm Hole, 1995
pair of leather women’s shoes, size 38, with bullet hole in right shoe
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Piers Secunda ISIS Bullet Hole Painting (Assyrian Horse), 2015
‘For ten years, British artist Piers Secunda has been capturing the violent manifestations of geopolitics using industrial floor paint. He described himself to me as merely “a guy who collects bullet damage,” however, the downplaying ends there. “I’m trying to make a forensic quality record, [it] has to be as accurate as possible,” Secunda, said, talking of the bullet holes he has accumulated and is now exhibiting. His process involves making molds of bullet holes and then placing their negatives into historical friezes.’
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Jani Leinonen ASSASSINATION OF NESQUIK BUNNY WITH COLT M1911 & M4, 2011
‘After Andy Warhol was shot he got out of the hospital and went back to his studio to find that one of his prints had also been pierced by the bullet. That would be the Warhol artwork I would most like to own. The bullet went first through his body and then through his art. It’s such a dramatic event in his life – real life brutally piercing art. I could hardly think of a more cataclysmic event and it had a huge impact on my art. This is where these works stemmed from. There’s also this idea of what happens to designer perfection after a violent event – it leaves marks.’ — Jani Leinonen
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Aura Satz Between the Bullet and the Hole, 2015
‘Between the Bullet and the Hole (11 mins) centres on the elusive and complex effects of war on women’s role in ballistic research and early computing. The film features new and archival high-speed bullet photography, schlieren and electric spark imagery, bullet sound wave imagery, forensic ballistic photography, slide rulers, punch cards, computer diagrams, and a soundtrack by Scanner.’
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Stan Winston Terminator 2 Bullet Effects, 1991
‘Remember Terminator 2? Guns were nearly useless against the murderous T-1000, played by Robert Patrick. Bullets fired at the “liquid metal” robot resulted only in a chrome-looking bullet splash that momentarily staggered the killing machine. The effects were done by Stan Winston, who died in 2008.
‘First of all, Winston and his team researched the correct “look” for the splash impacts by firing projectiles into mud and painstakingly working to duplicate the resulting shapes. These realistic-looking crater sculpts were then cast in some mixture of foam rubber, and given a chromed look by way of vacuum metallizing (also known as vacuum deposition) which is a way of depositing a thin layer of metal onto a surface. Vacuum deposition is similar to electroplating, but the process does not require the object being coated to have a conductive surface.
‘These foam rubber splash patterns — which look like metal but aren’t — were deployed using a simple mechanical system. A variety of splashes in different sizes get individually compressed into receptacles in a fiberglass chest plate. Covering each is a kind of trapdoor, each held closed by a single pin on a cable.
‘To trigger a bullet impact effect, a wireless remote control pulls a cable, which pulls its attached pin, and the compressed splash pattern blossoms forth in an instant, bursting through pre-scored fabric in the process.’
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Adrienne Salinger Girl With Bullet Hole, 1995
Ektacolor supra II photograph
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Lauren Fox The Thirteenth Hole, 2022
poster
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Lisa Oppenheim Killed Negatives: After Walker Evans, 2007
‘In ‘Killed Negatives, After Walker Evans’ (2007), Oppenheim uses Walker Evans’ unpublished photographs from 1938 found in the National Library of Congress. Evans was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration to document depression era rural America. These negatives are ‘killed’ because they had holes punched through them to prevent publication. Oppenheim printed them and conceptualises the holes as a space of potential contemporary interpretation.’
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Nate Lowman Pink Escalade, 2005
‘Nate Lowman’s bullet holes have gained a certain iconic status, due in no small part to their unusual ability to at once evoke the macabre and the kitsch aspects of American society as we know them. Lowman dares to reveal in his own words, our total fascination with death, violence, and sexuality—however glib the conversation may be. His categorical style of a trompe l’oeil silkscreen on shaped canvases drains its viewers of delight while somehow managing to invigorate a dark embrace of death.’
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Viktor Mitic Bullet Hole Justin Bieber, 2011
‘This painting has an incredible provenance, once stolen from his exhibition at Toronto’s International Film Festival in 2017, it was returned unharmed. This kidnapping of the “Justin Bieber” painting made headlines before the perpetrators turned themselves in to the Chief of Police in an elaborate exchange with the artist present to verify its authenticity.’
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William Christenberry Rusted Sign with Bullet Holes, Alabama, 1973
photograph
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Bill Caffrey Can a US combat helmet stop a bullet?, 1991
video
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Zhao Zhao Constellations, 2022
Embroidery on silk
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Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita) you shoot at yourself, america, 1968
‘Printed text reads: You Shoot at Yourself, America: Freedom to Kill The color of the Statue of Liberty grows ever more deathly pale as, loving freedom with bullets you shoot at yourself, America. You can kill yourself this way! It is dangerous to go out into this hellish world, but it is still more dangerous to hide in the bushes. There is a smell on earth of a universal Dallas, it is frightful to live and this fright is shameful. Who is going to believe hippocritical fairy tales, when, behind a facade of noble ideas the price of revolver lubricant rises and the price of human life falls? Murderers attend funerals dressing in mourning, and later become stockholders, and once again, ears of grain filled with bullets wave in the fields of Texas. The eyes of murderers peer out alike from under hats and caps, the steps of murderers are heard at all doorways, and a second of the Kennedys falls… America, save your children! The children of other countries turn gray, and their huts bombed in the night, burn in your fire, just like your Bill of Rights. You promised to be the conscience of the world, but, at the brink of bottomless shame, you are shooting not at King, but at your own conscience. You are bombing Vietnam and with this your own honor. When a nation is going dangerously insane, it cannot be cured of its troubles by hastily prescribed calm. Perhaps the only help is shame. History cannot be cleansed in a laundry. There are no such washing machines blood can never be washed away! O where is it hiding, the shame of the nation, as if it were a runaway Negro? The slaves are within the slaves. There are many unfettered murderers. They carry out their mob justice, pogroms, and Raskolnikov wanders through America, insane, with a bloody ax. Hey, Old Abe what are people doing, understanding vilely only one truth: that the greatness of a tree can be assessed only after it is felled. Lincoln basks in his marble chair, wounded. They are shooting at him again! What beasts. The stars in your flag, America, are like bullet holes. Arise from the dead, bullet-pierced Statue of Liberty, murdered so many times and speak out like a woman and mother and curse the freedom to kill. But without wiping the splashes of blood from your forehead you, Statue of Liberty, have raised up your green, drowned woman’s face, appealing to the heavens against being trodden under foot.’
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Teresa Marolles Frontera, 2011
‘Teresa Marolles’ “Frontera” reflects on the dramatic scale of drug trafficking in Mexican society. The exhibition features walls where executions took place, that the artist took down in Mexico and rebuilt in Bolzano—Muro Baleado (Culiacán), 2009, and Muro Ciudad Juárez, 2010.’
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Banksy Bullet Hole Bust, 2006
Cast jesmonite with red paint, with accompanying plinth
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Andrew Douglas The Amityville Horror (2005)
movie
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Jasper Johns Flag (Moratorium), 1969
‘Jasper Johns’ 1969 “Flag (Moratorium)” is one of the most important symbols of the anti-Vietnam war movement. While the flag is the most important and recognizable emblem of America, Johns subverts the image’s inherent optimism through a series of unexpected details: the army green color of the stripe, the agent orange hue of the square, and the single white bullet hole in the center of the piece.’
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Lorna Simpson Polka Dot & Bullet Holes #2, 2016
India ink and screen print on Claybord
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Margaret Evangeline Sunday Morning II / White, 2015
Gunshot on stainless steel powder-coated
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Hindi News Firing After Clash Between Two Groups, 2023
video
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Jean-François Bouchard In Guns We Trust, 2019
‘The photographs of In Guns We Trust follow the artist’s pursuit into the Big Sandy Shooting Range, chronicling the material and physical activity of gun aficionados in a unique form of tourism.’
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Yoko Ono A Hole, 2010
‘It presents viewers with a pane of glass pierced by a bullet, with an instruction engraved on the glass, which reads: “GO TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLASS AND SEE THROUGH THE HOLE”. Ono’s instruction encourages viewers to see from the perspective of both aggressor and victim, simultaneously engaging two opposing viewpoints.’
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Unknown A Penny That Stopped a Bullet and Saved a Life, 1899
‘Of the three Trickett brothers who left their home in Lincolnshire, in eastern England, to fight for the United Kingdom in the First World War, only John would survive. Horace and Billy were among the more than eight million soldiers killed in the Great War, which saw casualties on an unprecedented scale due to the advent of new, more advanced weapons. John, however, was saved by the most ordinary and rudimentary equipment on the entire battlefield: a penny in his breast pocket that deflected a bullet intended for his heart.’
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Dana Chandler Fred Hampton’s Door 2, 1975
‘The piece is crafted using a found door that’s been painted green and red, the colors of the Pan-African flag. Genuine bullet holes litter the façade, and a blue-and-white star stamp in the upper right-hand corner reads “U.S. Approved.” The work represents the police barrage into Hampton’s apartment in a very tangible way.’
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Etienne Chambaud Personne, 2008
lenticular print
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Maurizio Cattelan Night, 2021)
Stainless steel, black paint, bullet holes
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‘The contemporary art world was taken by storm Wednesday after a two day auction of the late actor Dennis Hopper’s bullet-holed Andy Warhol Mao painting sold at $302,500. Warhol’s Mao print stood out because it included bullet holes fired after Hopper mistook the portrait of the Communist leader for Mao himself one wild night in the 1970s, according to Christie’s. The actor, who died of cancer last year aged 74, later showed Warhol the bullet holes. Instead of reacting angrily, Warhol called the star a collaborator and took the liberty to label each bullet on the painting.’
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‘A Russian artist commissioned some dudes really good at shooting guns to decorate a BMW 3-Series with some bullet hole flowers. The car was marked with where they were supposed to shoot it, and as you can see from the pictures, they missed a lot.’
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Jared Amlin Hit System with Interfaces in Unity, 2023
‘I have no idea how other studios do their complex hit systems. I wanted to challenge myself to see what I could come up with, while trying to keep it scalable, and reusable.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Nicholas(Nick), Hey. Charming day you had. I’ll go peruse your MuseMenaceTV updates. Cool. Seriously doubt I can get Sweet Loren’s cookies over here, but I’ll check or else put them on my next LA to-do list. Me, up to? Mostly setting up plans for today: movie w/ friend, dinner with another friend, trying to decipher a contract in French that I’m supposed to sign. Not a ton. Well, your comments made it through security today, so hopefully it’s sated, and hopefully it’s a sign. ** Charalampos, Hi, Nice listening. Oh, I have too many favorites on that LP to pick one, I think. Another thing I think I’ve never seen in Paris is a butterfly. This place is weird. It’s hard for me to take apart the Cycle because I think of it as one work, but, if I had subdivide it, maybe I would say ‘Guide’ is my favorite. As of today. Love from never dull Paris. ** Даrву 🦔, Those are some irresistibly cute noises. Cheers for the cheer. Whoa, awesome about you as an official student! That’s big, great news! Associate art degree sounds good and right. Oh, at the city college I took two poetry workshops and a filmmaking class and a drawing class and a history class, but I barely attended that class, and I don’t remember what the history was. Hello back to Frankie with a scrunch if he likes such things. I’m okay, no big whoop, just okay. Hope you slept like a rock or whatever they weirdly but interestingly say, xo. ** Jack Skelley, Hi, Flip. I guess it’s too late to change your name on your book cover to Flip Skelley. More’s the pity. Sounds wild enough, that event, and I want deets, tomorrow via Zoom if not before. Hug: will do. Oh, let me see what ‘PotA’ is if I see it as planned today, but I suspect it won’t have enough meat on its bones to warrant a worthwhile confab. Chris Lemmerhirt worked at Flip on Melrose. How about that? Yours, Pancho’s Tacos. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s not easy to come by anywhere, I fear, except, well, in France in French, I suspect. ** Dominik, Hi!!! If we managed to do that we would have Boulevards named after us at the very least. Um, the new producer is … we’re still figuring him out, but the problems continue to come largely from the original producer, who remains misery in human form. Ange had jet lag yesterday, so I think we’re going to see the Apes today. Ha ha, ‘go for a beer’: less magic words hath ne’er been spoke. Love recommending a good Japanese restaurant in the Marais that’s vegetarian-friendly, G. ** James Bennett, Hey. I personally think getting away from those ‘I speak for all’ oriented writers is a very healthy move. But the critical establishment would disagree. Yes, alert me when you’re coming or here, and let’s meet up. Excellent! Marinating is an important part of the process, right? God, I hope so. Care will be taken in return for your taking care. ** Brightpath, I am excited to watch that/those film(s). The charisma is starting to blast. I’m clearing the decks for it/them. If you get into watching Robebe-Grillet’s films, my favorites are ‘Successive Slidings of Pleasure’ and ‘Trans-Europ-Express’ for whatever that’s worth. Wow, it’s Friday already, have a great one! ** Misanthrope, I figured there must be some specific cause of your antipathy to ‘buddy’. Yeah, yeah, you’re right, there are large areas of agreement. I think I was just too long without a cigarette yesterday. But I just smoked a moment ago, and yes, you are entirely correct. ** Steve, Curious to see the new Cristal Moselle film, although the subject matter in ‘Wolfpack’ is so compelling it was hard to judge her directorial thing. I hope the neck manipulations are magical. I think they can be. ** Paul Rosheim, Hi, Paul. Welcome. I saw your comment a little earlier today and deleted that mis-captioned photo. Thanks a lot for the alert. I really appreciate it. ** Justin D, Hi. Tentatively July. It’s not cemented yet. Oh, god, scary about your early arriving heat. That gives me the shivers (we’re still chilly-ish here). I’m with you. Landscaping is an art, and if you can hire an artist, go for it. My friend Zac’s father is a gardener/landscaper, so I’ve learned about that profession/art. Unfortunately Zac’s dad is very expensive, so I won’t recommend him. How is the weekend looking from not so very afar? ** Harper, Yeah, I think up through ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ the Kinks are pretty impeccable, but then the drop off starts. When I was young I was super into Pink Floyd, but then ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ came out, which I thought was a total washout, and that was it for me. I too am wary of revisiting the post-Barrett, pre-DSOFM period. My vibe is that it won’t have staying power. ‘Face to Face’, too, yes. I think you’re right that The Jam is more Who-derived, but lyrically I think Davies was definitely on Weller’s mind too. Well, you probably know that here in France books are largely issued with plain white covers with nothing but the title and author. I really like that. I like that utter garbage and the highest of lit all look exactly the same from the outside. I can’t remember a US corporate publisher book cover that wasn’t just maybe graphically clever/ eye-catchy at best. And, yeah, I do prefer the kind of uglier, in many cases, arty cover from past decades. But now I’ve gotten sold on white, minimalist covers. ** Gumm, Hi. Tentatively July. It’s not totally locked down yet. I can’t really say anything about the book until the publisher announces it, but that should be soon. It’s a small book. If it was a record rather than a book, it would be an EP. Well, you have just clearly laid out why ‘dangerous’ is an appropriate term for this upcoming meeting/event, ha ha. I guess try to keep your head screwed on, as my mom used to say. The kind of thing you’re describing does tend to be more compelling in the imagination than it is once the obsessed over people are in-person, flesh and blood, but there’s no telling. Gosh, good luck. Excited and terrified is better than being bored, yes! Hang in there, pal. ** Jamie F, Hi. Gosh, thank you so much. Soon we’ll just be fellow writer chums, and that’ll be nice too. If your exes remind you of my narrators then you’ve been with some, ahem, interesting guys for sure. Glad you’re okay. Maybe the effect of my writing about gay sex and stuff is because I never think about the characters as being gay or that that means anything important. I never think about that about myself either. I don’t like generalisations. I’m suspicious of them. I’m just strange me. Yeah, when people are kind to me it just sort of confuses me and blows my mind in a nice way. I had a rough childhood, for sure. Awesome that you want to write novels. Speaking as someone who made that my life’s goal whence young. It’s cool you’re publishing on Medium, that’s a very read and popular site. That’s great, congrats to you and to them. I mean, you can send me that novella, of course. I’m curious, but it’s up to you. I know I’m really careful about what I share of my stuff, so I understand. You’re in Australia. I’ve only been to Melbourne and Tasmania. They seemed okay. If you do get over here, sure, let’s meet and hang. Just let me know what your plans are when you make them, and hopefully I’ll be here then. I’m really easy in person and not intimidating, I don’t think, so no worries, really. Thanks, Jamie. I’m happy you’re into being around here. Superb Friday to you if that’s possible on your end. ** Uday, Hi. Hm, interesting question. He’s a pretty good writer, though, so … but who knows? Long distance, yeah, that old problem. But he’s interested, so … Sadness is important. When you’re chipper again, hopefully by now, it’ll be a richer form of chipper, that’s my guess. Hope at least. I live about a ten minute walk from Stendhal’s former house. Now it’s a hotel. Hotel Stendhal. Two stars. ** Right. Here’s another post needing no introduction. See you tomorrow.
René Crevel My Body and I
Now available in North America 