IMAGE: Farrah Karapetian, Display Convention: Combat Negatives: P226 Sig Sauer and H&K416, 2013, cast resin, display case: 14 x 32 x 32 in. (35.6 x 81.3 x 81.3 cm)

“A few months ago, I walked into the hall of armor at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The museum was closed, so the lights were off, but sunlight still filtered through into sterile vitrines in which steel plate suits and rifles inlaid with mother of pearl stood at attention. I had just finished making the molds for these resin casts of contemporary weapons used by the U.S. Armed Forces, and I knew immediately that this is how they should be displayed: according to the institutional conventions of history-making. The resin pistol is cast from a P226 Sig Sauer and the rifle is an H&K 416. They are cast in resin so that light will filter through their volume and result in more articulate photograms. I call them "negatives” because this filtration is their function, although after the fact of exposure they exist independently of the photograms they produced. I want them to be understood as artifacts of lived experience, because that is what they are: these resin guns are artifacts of the performance of making the photograms shown elsewhere in the Rogue Wave exhibition, and the performance is an artifact of the memory of the veterans pictured in the photograms, and the memory is an artifact of the veterans’ lived experience of warfare.“

– Farrah Karapetian

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Hear Farrah Karapetian explain the inspiration behind her photograms and sculpture in our very last Rogue Wave Artist Talk this Thursday, August 22, 6:30pm. 

Don’t forget, Rogue Wave 2013 is now in its final week! The show officially ends on Friday, August 23.