The Beautiful Bomb
I am smitten with this sculpture. At the Art Gallery of York University, (after squeezing by the hip revelers at the bar,) this piece reached out and grabbed me. Perhaps that has to do with my obsession with Ukrainian Eggs (see my previous post...) but it's much, much more.
Created by Anitra Hamilton, it is titled "Who's gonna tell Jesus there's no Santa Claus."
It is a real bomb (how did she acquire that?) covered in smashed Ukrainian Eggs. As you stand next to it, you can see how each egg had fit together. She told me that "I made 20 dozen psanky eggs for that project, it took 8 months, never again."
This beautiful decoration, concealing this tool of violence and destruction, proves to be a compelling and irreducable provocation. I keep asking myself what the relationship between these elements might be...
Are the eggs complicit in decorating violence?
Or are they offering a fragile alternative to violence and domination?
What is the power in brokenness?
There is something powerful in the fact the eggs are broken. This broken, suffering beauty is a critique of the violence of our empires (or within ourselves).
I also enjoyed Kristan Horton's show... it was fun, witty, campy.
But it's the egg-bomb that kept exploding in my head on the drive home.