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Lot Essay
'I try to do what I like to do; ultimately that's the only system that works for me. I don't think a sculptor does hard work; he plays. The way a painter plays, the way anyone who does what he likes plays. Playing games is not just what children do; everything is a game, isn't it? Some people work; childhood games turn into adolescent games, adolescent games turn into the ones in your adult life, but they're still games.' (Pino Pascali interviewed by Carla Lonzi in 1967, cited in C. Chritov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera, London 1999, p.262.)
Mitragliatrice (Submachine gun) is one of the celebrated Armi (Weapons) that Pascali first exhibited at Sperone Gallery in Turin in 1966. Pascali embarked on making the Armi in 1965 at the time of the first demonstrations against the Vietnam war and they are a direct satirical response to the Cold War politics of the era. Diligently recreated with a careful and loving attention to detail, Pascali's weapons mimic precisely the latest models of the world arms industry. Functionally, however, they are useless. They have all been assembled from scrap metal objects such as engine parts, plumbers tubing and camping gear.
A satirical development of the Pop art object, Pascali's weapons are elegant sculptures that playfully satirize the arms race and, in the same vein as the 1964 film Dr Strangelove, reduce its seeming seriousness to the level of a game played between a group of children. While the careful crafting of these highly sculptural objects clearly celebrates the elegant forms and iconic power of these machines, in constructing life-size but ultimately redundant weapons from ordinary household objects and by being photographed fooling around with them, Pascali's intention has clearly been to undermine their function by subordinating them to the level of playthings. The Armi are to all intent and purpose highly sophisticated full-size toys. The suggestion is implicit within them that the men who deal with the real thing are also nothing more than overgrown children playing games with guns.
In this sense, the Armi also relate strongly to Pascali's personal history. Having grown up in a generation whose sense of the heroic was inextricably linked to the exploits of war, he has described his own sense of play - an element central to the creation of art - was closely integrated to war and weapons. 'I was born in 1935', Pascali explains, 'The first games I played were based most of all on war. My toys were piles of objects found in the house which represented weapons. For example a bean became a bullet, a broomstick and a box held together with a rubber band became a rifle, a rolled-up piece of paper tied to a stool was a cannon, a saucepan was a helmet, two pieces of wood nailed together were a sabre, three pieces of wood an aeroplane and so on. The way I played with other children was largely based on the war-heroism representation of the grown-ups (our fathers were at war). Contact with artists offered me a critical vision of my heroic world. But, at the same time, all the possibilities I was offered by the great masters of painting remained foreign to me. After various experiences of trying this and that, my organism was tired out, lost in a blind alley, the only thing I could be sure of was that my problem had to do with reclaiming my origins. But with what linguistic means? Rather than being an aesthetic experience, my subsequent work was an extended linguistic crisis. I was trying out idioms which belonged to other human experiences and which tallied with the heroic world of my childhood.' (Pino Pascali, cited in C. Chritov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera, London 1999, p. 264).
Mitragliatrice (Submachine gun) is one of the celebrated Armi (Weapons) that Pascali first exhibited at Sperone Gallery in Turin in 1966. Pascali embarked on making the Armi in 1965 at the time of the first demonstrations against the Vietnam war and they are a direct satirical response to the Cold War politics of the era. Diligently recreated with a careful and loving attention to detail, Pascali's weapons mimic precisely the latest models of the world arms industry. Functionally, however, they are useless. They have all been assembled from scrap metal objects such as engine parts, plumbers tubing and camping gear.
A satirical development of the Pop art object, Pascali's weapons are elegant sculptures that playfully satirize the arms race and, in the same vein as the 1964 film Dr Strangelove, reduce its seeming seriousness to the level of a game played between a group of children. While the careful crafting of these highly sculptural objects clearly celebrates the elegant forms and iconic power of these machines, in constructing life-size but ultimately redundant weapons from ordinary household objects and by being photographed fooling around with them, Pascali's intention has clearly been to undermine their function by subordinating them to the level of playthings. The Armi are to all intent and purpose highly sophisticated full-size toys. The suggestion is implicit within them that the men who deal with the real thing are also nothing more than overgrown children playing games with guns.
In this sense, the Armi also relate strongly to Pascali's personal history. Having grown up in a generation whose sense of the heroic was inextricably linked to the exploits of war, he has described his own sense of play - an element central to the creation of art - was closely integrated to war and weapons. 'I was born in 1935', Pascali explains, 'The first games I played were based most of all on war. My toys were piles of objects found in the house which represented weapons. For example a bean became a bullet, a broomstick and a box held together with a rubber band became a rifle, a rolled-up piece of paper tied to a stool was a cannon, a saucepan was a helmet, two pieces of wood nailed together were a sabre, three pieces of wood an aeroplane and so on. The way I played with other children was largely based on the war-heroism representation of the grown-ups (our fathers were at war). Contact with artists offered me a critical vision of my heroic world. But, at the same time, all the possibilities I was offered by the great masters of painting remained foreign to me. After various experiences of trying this and that, my organism was tired out, lost in a blind alley, the only thing I could be sure of was that my problem had to do with reclaiming my origins. But with what linguistic means? Rather than being an aesthetic experience, my subsequent work was an extended linguistic crisis. I was trying out idioms which belonged to other human experiences and which tallied with the heroic world of my childhood.' (Pino Pascali, cited in C. Chritov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera, London 1999, p. 264).