Kalashnikov 7.62 mm, The New Social Order
MAKE WAR NOT LOVE
Description

Description: One of the walls (the front one is desirable) of a picture gallery with appropriate size, will be covered with thick porous material, that can hold fluid. The material is further processed with conserved animal blood (as much as it takes) and afterwards is stamped with a coat of paint with safe thickness. The wall is next putted with stucco to smooth the its surface and last it is painted in the same colour as the colour of the other walls is. Large picturesque canvases with young, beautiful and healthy faces painted on them, as well as appealing objects and landscapes in the style of flossy magazines and tourist guides, TV shows and postcards. They suggest happiness, light-heartedness, prosperity and provoke the desire to be shared, the longing for being possessed. In style and format come close to the pop art (posters, adverts etc.). The processed wall remains empty.

Inauguration of the installation The artist, dressed appropriately and at safe distance from the empty wall starts shooting with Kalashnikov 7.62 mm to the wall, before the unbelieving eyes and ears of the visitors. While shooting he writes out on the wall MAKE WAR NOT LOVE. Blood comes out and keeps leaking down slowly from the holes. Bleeding love. Bitter tears. The Wall of lament. The shots are still ringing in the ears of the people present. Fear and confusion in their eyes. The feeling of death and danger - in the air. The merry images on the other walls keep hanging, senseless. Silence is falling over, the dripping of the blood can be heard only. Uneasy, rambling, trite announcements of politicians sound in the air. Interrupted by radio jamming. Their words are dying out, slowly. Radio jamming in their turn are fading away. Silence. The end

November the17th, 1997 . The wall in Kapelica Gallery, Ljubliana, Slovenia. The end of the performance 'MAKE WAR NOT LOVE' executed by Ventsislav Zankov