Trigger

Building on their interest in an American culture of fear, Type A has created a series of shooting range target posters that depict a variety of threatening scenarios at which both professionals and laypersons shoot firearms. In some, a perpetrator threatens a victim; in others, the perpetrator’s aggression is focused directly at the person shooting at the target. Guns, knives, and even I.E.D.s are the weapons. The subjects are men, women and children; military and civilians; Americans and Arabs.

 Created as an outgrowth of Barrier (2009) and Target (2010), Trigger incorporates photography and sculpture. Type A made images using friends, family and professional colleagues to create scenarios including hostage standoffs, home intrusions, school shootings, mass transit threats and terrorist threats. These images are a catalogue of the fears we face as a society, both real and imagined.

 Military and law enforcement personnel train regularly at shooting ranges using paper posters designed to depict typical situations they may face in the line of duty. Poster production houses request photographs shot on spec and then choose which ones are appropriate for commercial reproduction. Criteria include cultural relevance and realism. After chosen, these posters are mass-produced and sold to ranges across the world. Type A has created several series of targets that have been chosen for such reproduction. In this way, Type A has commented upon the fears of our time and, possibly, identify new ones. Concurrently, Type A is putting curatorial decisions in the hands of non-art world professionals. In this way, the project has broken the insular walls of galleries and museums to subculture more concerned with realism than studied aesthetics.