Harrier and Jaguar is the new installation by artist Fiona Banner and is on display at Tate Britain. Banner has grasped the discomfiting significance of these weapons of war. The incongruity of the setting in which these recently decommissioned fighter planes find themselves helps to build the tension between our perceptions of these machines and our objective experience of them.
The Sea Harrier is suspended from the roof and brings to mind the butcher’s shops of yesteryear when game birds would be publicly hung so their meat could mature. It brings to mind these trussed birds, well and truly deceased and hung ignominiously upside down.
The Jaguar is polished and presented lying on its cockpit, like an outstretched, recumbent animal. It position suggest a submissive, tamed animal. It is highly polished allowing the audience to see its own reaction in the reflective surface.
Are they captive beasts or fallen trophies? There is irony here – both of these fighter planes have seen military action and who can tell how many lives they and their pilots have taken? The ambiguity is self evident – one can only deplore the destruction they have wreaked but, simultaneously, we are drawn by their beauty and elegance.
Some have argued that the Harrier and Jaguar are not art, but essentially the mixed emotions that they evoke are at the very heart of what art is. Tate Britain has been planning this installation with Banner for two years. No doubt they knew that her subject matter would cause some controversy.
Yet Harrier and Jaguar is not intended as a political statement. Banner is simply drawing our attention to our responses to iconic images that we are faced with every day. We are asked to judge our own response to the art as much as the art itself.
Harrier and Jaguar makes for a very compelling but very disturbing and potentially even horrifying installation. Let us know what you think.
Harrier and Jaguar will remain at Tate Modern until January 2011.
Why the Panda is Black and WhiteThis is a superbly created piece of animation which captures the imagination. The world is monochrome until an invisible hand starts to ...
Lofoten – Arctic Circle AnomalyThe archipelago of Lofoten in Norway is north of the Arctic Circle. Yet throughout the year it has temperatures which belie its posi...
Fly Geyser – Not Quite of this WorldThey look as if they were taken on another planet, or at least on the set of a new and very expensive science fiction movie. Yet these pi...
The Lady and The ReaperAn old lady is nearing the end of her days and she longs to be with the husband she has lost. So, when death pays her a visit on nigh...
The Goat Tower - A Caprine CondominiumWhat do you do when you own a group of Swiss Mountain Goats but there isn’t anywhere for them to climb? The answer that South African far...
The Mysterious Moeraki BouldersImage Credit Flickr User geoftheref If you go down to Koekohe beach in New Zealand you can be sure of a big surprise. In front of you, scat...
Skellig Michael – Mysterious Monastery in the AtlanticNine miles off the coast of County Kerry in the west of Ireland there are two small rocky islands peeking out of the Atlantic Ocean. The l...
Hobbiton: Sheep 1, Hobbits 0Image Credit Flickr User Rob & Jules Matamata in New Zealand was the place chosen to film the Hobbiton scenes of the Lord of the Rin...
Pamukkale – Turkey’s Cotton CastleIn Turkish the name literally means Cotton Castle and it is easy to see why it was given that. Yet this geological wonder is also the site...
The Tallest Statues of Jesus Christ in the WorldProbably the most famous statue of Jesus on the planet, known for both size and location, is the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, B...