English-born artist Jon Burgerman has taken a short break from rendering his colorful, bubble-eyed characters. Instead, the Queens-based artist has recently been posing and photographing himself in front of the weapon-bearing stars found on movie and television posters throughout New York subway stations. With the help of some red paint, Burgerman brings these violent images to life in a series of photographs cleverly entitled Head Shots.
In one of the photos, for instance, Burgerman looks as if he's been shot through the neck by one of Jennifer Lawrence's arrows. In another, he falls victim to Daniel Craig's gun. While Burgerman's photos are merely a play on the billboard pictures people see so often, he's not only trying to make his viewers laugh but also consider the power of these images as well.
"There are quite regular occurrences of gun violence and tragedy around the country, yet we have these celebrated members of society on giant billboards holding weapons," Burgerman told The Guardian.
Perhaps the brilliance behind Burgerman's photos is that without someone posed in front of these advertisements, a Skyfall film poster looks harmless and even typical. With the artist presenting himself as a victim and portraying the very violent repercussions of guns and other weapons, however, suddenly there's something unsettling about these same pictures.
[via TheGuardian]
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