Gun cultured ... a still from Christian Marclay's Crossfire. Photograph: © Christian Marclay/White Cube
Apparently the streets of Britain were once peaceful cobbled lanes filled with friendly bobbies and ragged urchins. Things seem to have gone rather awry if the recent wave of gun violence in London is anything to go by. Even culturally, you can't move without stumbling into an exhibition heavy with artillery. The art world has gone gun crazy.
Ben Turnbull kicked things off last month with his anti-American sculptural pop art at Lazarides. Here guns were presented as openly political objects, loaded with wry humour. He repeatedly placed plastic blue toy rifles in red alarm boxes printed with the text: "In Emergency Break Glass". Christian Marclay's approach to firepower also shares a touch of humour, but the results are far more visceral. His stunning four-screen installation at the White Cube, Crossfire, transforms throwaway film footage into a sensory onslaught of cocked pistols, machine gun staccato, bangs and flashes. Bullets attack the viewer from all sides. Watching the work involves constantly looking over your shoulder at the sound of a loaded weapon.
In contrast, Aernout Mik's show at Camden Arts Centre is full of largely silent film works. Most of the pieces feature gun-toting soldiers wandering around in staged scenarios that appear to be the aftermath of war or disaster. In one piece, Raw Footage, he uses real documentary footage of the war in Yugoslavia: guerrilla soldiers aimlessly wait in forests before bursting into gun battles.
These artists have picked up on the insidious role of guns in modern life. (It's a strange world where it's cheaper to buy firearms on the street than art depicting such firearms...) Their work reflects the current climate of war and fear, but in an implied way - we're not looking at dead bodies and war-torn landscapes. Instead, there is something about the oh-so-phallic brutality of military hardware that is particularly resonant. Guns imply violence but they don't make its bloody consequences obvious. Instead the threat of violence is used to unnerve the viewer and create an atmosphere of anxiety. It's very different to the in-your-face shock approach of 90s art. This is gothic implication rather than horror gore. Which makes it all the more sinister.
