Art, damn it, art! watch (#11 in a series).

A former Royal Navy Sea Harrier jump-jet that saw active service in the skies over Bosnia has become the centrepiece of an exhibition at Tate Britain.

The plane, which would have cost £12 million when new, has been suspended from the ceiling in one of the grand sculpture galleries, looking more like a trussed bird than a deadly piece of kit.

Indeed, all of the plane’s wartime paintwork has been stripped off to reveal a reflective metallic surface so visitors ‘can’t detach themselves from their own reaction’ to the lethal machine.

Banner’s previous work has included written transcriptions of the frame-by-frame action in Top Gun and an installation of Airfix models of all war planes currently in service in the world. She has also made sculptures of punctuation marks.

Photos of the installation at the first link.

(Hattip: Bayou Renaissance Man.)


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