Michael Sailstorfer "T72" at Raster gallery, Warsaw, 16 IX 2010

T 72 is a popular model of a Soviet tank, in mass production since 1970, which, regrettably, has been tested in the battlefield on numerous occasions, beginning with Soviet operations in Afghanistan. Sailstorfer's "T72" is an inflatable life size scale model of the tank made from tarpaulin. Four air pumps provide it with air supply just to suck it out completely after a while. The fierce and formidable war machine is tamed, like a giant mammal in a zoological garden. In an instant the tank - symbol of violence and aggression - is transformed into an effective show of impotence. The cycle is rhythmically repeated, the machine seems to breathe, rising fiercely and dropping ridiculously like a living organism, subject to the laws of biology rather than history.
The appearance of a tank on the third floor of a pre-war Warsaw tenement is certainly a surprising incident, triggering a chain of unsettling associations. Sailstorfer's great inflatable machine appears to be a humanized, pacifist, version of hundreds of Russian tanks that have, and still do, adorn Polish cities and towns as war relics and memorials. The work by the German artist is a perverse attempt at taming them. But apart from depriving them of much of their past terror it also serves as a warning reviving memories, moving them with its steady breath.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• raster
• Michael
• Sailstorfer

[wisteela]

That is brilliant.