BANG BANG

2017 – RIO DE JANEIRO
5’38”

Bang Bang #1 is a video by Raul Mourão of 5’38’’ duration produced in February 2017, in Rio de Janeiro. In it, we see a series of metallic structures balanced on glass bottles, which are destroyed, one by one, by bullets fired from a gun. The photography of the slow motion video is directed by Daniel Venosa and the original soundtrack is by the producer and musician, Ricardo Imperatore. To create the work, a total of sixty sculptures were taken to a firing range and shot at using six different kinds of fire-arm, over a period of three hours. In incorporating a fire-arm as an element/material of the work, Mourão returns to the theme of violence, a recurrent subject in his work. In addition to this, the act of shooting at a work of art, according to the artist, is a reference to the hatred of artistic creation, to the conflict between those who produce art and those who seek to attack it and destroy it. According to Mourão, “the video incorporates both the issue of urban violence and the destructive impulse of a reactionary community which opposes art”.