antonio riello’s ladies weapons
 


 

This is definitely not street tech, but an artist appropriating the aesthetical appropriation of weapons for his own expressive ends. Italian artist Antonio Riello [of whom I couldn’t find an own site on the Web, but about whom I have read at diverse pages that he was born in Kabul, Rio de Janeiro, and Marostica, Italy] has peculiar interests: “Since the beginning of his artistic career,” ↑Hoard Magazine wrote in 2001, “he wanted to be a social reporter investigating his immediate environment. He is particularly interested in the “dark sides” of Italian contemporary life.”
 


 

The background of his ↑“Ladies Weapons”, displayed here are all of them I could find on the Web, Riello describes like this:
 

Maybe the recently issued ↑pimp-style gold and silver Razr cellphone by Dolce & Gabbana appeals to a matching clientele ;-)
 


 

Riello’s artefacts remind me of the MP5k over and over engraved with traditional gun-ornaments, of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti’s gold-plated assault- and sniper-rifles [see ↵golden guns], of the ↑countless weapons [selection] ↑endo modelled for Max-Payne modifications, among them fine decorated specimens as well, of the decorated guns in Buz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie ↑“Romeo + Juliet”—or was it Andrzej Bartkowiak’s 2000 ↑“Romeo must die”?—and of car-modding Chicano-style in general.
 


 

Riello ↑paints weapons as well, but I take the ladies weapons to be more impressive. Especially as they strive to voice an emic cultural insight: “Italians have two great passions,” ↑says Riello, “on the one hand, we like costly, lavish things. But at the same time we have this morbid attraction for violence and for blood.” In today’s world, ↑Fabergé eggs look accordingly …
 


 

initially via entry at boinboing