Basswood
9.635 x 11.125 x 9.375 in
24.5 x 28.3 x 23.8 cm
2008
Richard Humann • Shooting Gallery • Basswood • 9.635 x 11.125 x 9.375 in • 2008
In Shooting Gallery, Richard Humann transforms a familiar carnival shooting game into a darkly comic representation of execution by firing squad. The basswood sculpture is part of his series You Must Be This Tall, in which classic amusement park attractions are reconfigured with devices associated with historical methods of execution and torture. In the traditional game, participants aim at metal targets arranged at the back of a booth, testing their accuracy for the chance to win a prize. Humann recasts this simple contest as a firing squad, turning recreational marksmanship into an image of state-sanctioned killing.
The dark humor emerges from the bluntness of the substitution. A game designed to reward a steady hand and a good aim becomes a miniature theater of execution, where the familiar arrangement of targets evokes the deliberate, coordinated violence of a firing squad. The transformation is absurd precisely because it requires so little: the basic premise of the carnival game remains intact, while its implications shift from harmless competition to lethal consequence. What was once an opportunity to demonstrate skill becomes a chilling parody of the authority to take a life.
As part of You Must Be This Tall, the sculpture explores the uneasy relationship between public entertainment and private suffering, between the pleasure of participation and the pain inflicted on another. The shooting gallery turns violence into a game, while the firing squad represents violence organized and sanctioned by institutional power. By bringing these forms together, Humann exposes how easily the mechanics of play can resemble the mechanics of punishment. The work’s humor invites an initial smile, only to complicate it with the recognition that the spectacle of violence can be made familiar, entertaining, and even pleasurable when viewed from the safety of the audience.
Photo credit: Joseph Silva / Richard Humann Studio