Sad
It's Sad When You Shoot A Chalkboard
At first glance Chris Larson’s Shotgun Chalkboard Landscape reminded me of
the video Jeremy’s Song by Pearl Jam. The kid in the video shot up the
class and I am sure he hit the chalkboard as well. Then I started to think
about other recent school shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech.
Chris Larson’s art description said a 12 gauge shotgun was used to shoot
the board 376 times creating a huge hole. Just a little excessive don’t you
think. Just as the shootings in the school cases were excessive acts.
Excessive also is the size of this peace of work.
A large black rectangle border that is two and a half feet thick and
stretches about fifteen feet wide and ten feet tall, hangs massively on the
gallery wall. The inside of the jagged border is where the gun shots
exploded pieces of the chalkboard away leaving a large hole in the center.
The fact that the hole is simply the wall showing through, produces a
feeling of nothingness while viewing. At initial inspection more attention
is paid to the interesting shapes that the bullets created in the black
board. After all the whole is just the gallery wall it’s not a piece of the
art. Or is it?
At first I thought what’s the point made by shooting a big hole of
nothingness in a chalkboard, other than just to make viewers remember the
school shootings? Now I think the hole has more significance. We all know
now that the school shooters had something missing in their lives like
uninvolved parents or a lack of confidence to deal with preppy assholes in
a less permanent way. That can lead to feelings like a giant hole of
nothingness. Many people create what is missing in their lives, they say it
can be therapeutic. The missing gun hole in the art corresponds to the
school shooters who created many holes with guns. I wonder if they got any
short lived therapy out of their holes.
an older student