Divine Ammunition

The first time I encountered the work of Al Farrow was at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. When I first saw that piece I thought it was just a beautiful replica of on of an old cathedral but at I got closer I notice it was made entirely of weapons and ammunition. As troubling as that was I soon found out it contains a human spinal cord. I was able to catch the last day of the exhibit, Divine Ammunition The Sculpture of Al Farrow at the Crocker Art Museum which showed even more of his challenging yet beautiful works. The show featured a variety of religious houses of prayer and other religious accoutrement made out of the furnishings of war. The artist’s work is meant to represent how every religion has had period of violence at some point in its history.

Reliquaries in the old days, were used to showcase and protect sacred artifacts such as the bones and body parts of saints and other. They were typically made of the richest materials, like gold, silver and adorned with precious gemstones to signify the importance of what they contained. Al Farrow uses guns bullet shells and casing and other part of weapons to create intricately detailed reliquaries. I like to believe that the artist’s of these items is meant to make a statement about how modern warfare has become a priority social welfare.

It was difficult to see what was contained inside many of the works, a conscious choice by the artist in order to get people to look closer for longer, but I could just make out parts of the of the religious texts contained inside the reliquaries. Other works blatantly displayed bones from Saint Guerrero, a saint made up by the Farrow as the patron saint of war.

There was something every eerie about being in the presence of these works, especially the ones that contained bones. Every piece is made out of real pieces of weapons and the bones are real as well. And each piece is carefully welded together to look like seamless and distressed by hand to resemble the colors and pattern of each respective shrine. I couldn’t help being drawn in by the beautifully complex mosaics created by assembling tiny parts like ball bearings and stacked bullet casings.

For more of Al Farrow's work check out his website alfarrow.com