Matt Straub
Ka Pow
Edition Size: 20
17 x 17 inch Giclée on 330gsm 100% Archival Cotton Paper
$100
Look very closely at this Matt Straub work for a second or two. Now close your eyes and ask yourself this question: Whom did you identify with almost automatically? The shooter or the man being shot?
The iconography of popular culture - a nexus of symbols that any person raised on comics or graphic novels is familiar with - is a deceptively straightforward one. All we need is the context of plot and characters in order to validate the linear logic of correct actions and reactions. Without that context, however, there is only a surmise that a bullet has found the right trajectory of justice. The quick and the dead are almost instinctively translated to the right and the wrong.
The masked man in the picture doesn't seem that eager to voice an opinion. For that matter, would he have to?
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