Video: Charles Krafft's Porcelain War
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Seattle-based artist Charles Krafft rocked the contemporary art world with his Porcelain War series. His works are life-size models of various types of weapons, and their peculiarity is that they are made of porcelain and painted with flowers.
Take a look at this porcelain grenade, for example. The text on it reads: "The world is fragile." This is a great example of an art form that communicates a message in a simple, clear and, most importantly, strong way.
Of all the people who bought weapons on the black market in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 1998, Charles Krafft was undoubtedly the only one who did it for art purposes. Meeting with arms dealers in cafes and bars, Charles asked to borrow him, for example, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and made a plaster cast of it, in order to then create a model of a weapon from porcelain and paint it in the Delft technique common in Holland in the 16th century. The resulting collection has led to what Charles has been called "one of the most rebellious artists in the United States, playing complex and difficult games with meaning and culture."
Now in the collection of Charles Krafft you can see the Thompson submachine gun, Uzi and Intratek submachine guns, pistols and revolvers of the Beretta and Smitt-Wesson system in caliber 50 mm, as well as knives with folding blades and hand grenades. According to him, his goal is to create "a porcelain weapon that will be so beautiful and frankly non-functional that it will dazzle with its beauty and confuse everyone who sees it."
“As you break through the jungle of bad news and sensational gossip every day, you can usually get distracted by looking at sentimental portraits or scenes from the lives of shepherds,” says Krafft. "But you will never find pictures of our unadorned life at the end of the 20th century on china, because no one wants to hang it on the wall, much less eat from it." Apparently, having decided to fill this gap, the artist also included in his collection porcelain saucers painted with scenes of wars and disasters.
Recommended:
War of the Three Brothers: Why Friendship and Family Ties Didn't Keep the Monarchs of the Three Empires from World War
The devastating consequences of the First World War forever reshaped the political map of the world. As a result, 2 revolutions took place, 4 empires disappeared, more than 20 million people died. It is striking that at the origins of this conflict were people who, by their origin, upbringing and childhood experience, were supposed to serve as a solid bulwark of peace. Three emperors, sovereigns of three powerful powers, were relatives of each other and were friends for many years
Artists in the War: How a Life Story Prompted Pyotr Todorovsky to the Plot of the Film "A Field-of-War"
The theme of the war became one of the central themes in the work of the famous director Pyotr Todorovsky, and this was logical - after all, he himself went through the war. His front-line everyday life later helped him achieve maximum authenticity and penetration both as an actor ("It was May") and as a director ("Loyalty", "Anchor, still anchor!", "Riorita"). And one of his most famous films - "A War-Field Romance" - appeared thanks to a real story from his life
8 Legendary Women of the First World War: Feats of War and Post-War Fate
The First World War fell on a pivotal time in itself: women began to drive cars, conquer the sky on still imperfect planes, got involved in political struggle, and conquered science long ago. It is not surprising that many women showed themselves very actively during the war, and some even became legends
Actresses in the war: Which of the Soviet screen stars visited the fronts of the Great Patriotic War
Viewers are accustomed to seeing them on screens in the images of brilliant film stars, films with their participation are well known to millions of viewers, but they performed their most important roles behind the scenes. Nobody imagined them like that: Aksinya from "Quiet Don" nursed the wounded in the hospital, Aladdin's mother from a movie tale served in anti-aircraft units of the air defense forces, Alyosha's mother from "The Ballad of a Soldier" was a radio operator at the front, and the empress from "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanki "shot down fascist planes
What is the world famous for the porcelain empire of the Kuznetsov family: Dulevo porcelain
Only about a century and a half ago, the flourishing of porcelain production of white clay products of the highest quality began in Russia. They were valued very highly and were considered a sign of good taste and wealth of the owners. And this miracle was produced by the factories of the "porcelain king" Matvey Kuznetsov, who created an entire "porcelain empire" in the Moscow region. However, the peak of the porcelain rush is a thing of the past, and traditional Russian porcelain, made literally until recently, has become an object of collection