(Image: M. J. Richardson, cc-sa-3.0)
If two decommissioned jet engines sitting outside an art gallery were to have any meaningful significance, perhaps it would be a reflection of one of man’s greatest achievements – flight – or the dawning of the jet age, which heralded a new epoch. But Roger Hiorns‘ 2010 work, Untitled (currently displayed in front of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh) runs far deeper.
The artwork, commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago, consists of two engines from a Boeing EC-135c surveillance aircraft that supposedly served in Afghanistan. Inside the engines are concealed three types of anti-psychotic drugs, which reportedly make reference to the creation and alleviation of anxiety on a global and individual level.
(Image: M. J. Richardson, cc-sa-3.0)
Culture 24 reports: “The stashes, the accompanying info insists, are “inaccessible to the viewer”, forming the hallucinogenic core of an installation gifted to the Arts Council Collection by the artist, London gallery Corvi Mora and the Henry Moore Foundation.”
Keep reading – check out Fiona Banner’s Harrier & Jaguar, and find out what happened to these jets once the exhibition ended.
