Acquisition: Shambroom at Walker

The Walker has just acquired Paul Shambroom's 1987 Toyota Celica, 500 lbs ANFO explosive. Taken at New Mexico Tech's Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center in 2005 as part of Shambroom's Security series, the photograph serves as a striking metaphor for the Bush 'War on Terror:' It's a big mess.

Shambroom's exploration of our security apparatus is one of the smartest artist responses to 9/11. Like Inka Essenhigh, Lari Pittman or Shirin Neshat, Shambroom hasn't made art about the attacks themselves, but about the climate that those attacks created (or enabled).

The Security series has earned Shambroom a nice bit of media attention, including this interview on Minnesota Public Radio. A few years ago Shambroom discussed the series with Joerg Colberg:

On Sept. 11 2001 I knew right away I would somehow address the aftermaths of these events in my work. It took a few years to figure out how to approach it visually. It's difficult to understand history when you're in the middle of it, there is no perspective. I settled on the idea of photographing in training environments because they are ripe with visual material of the source of our fears and potential salvation. The training simulations of both threat and response resonate with broader questions in the post-9/11 world: What is real? What is the nature of our fear?

There's more of Shambroom's Security series here, on his website.

Related: Shambroom's Face to Face with the Bomb is a terrific photo-book and includes an essay by Richard Rhodes, the unofficial historian of American atomic/nuclear bomb-making. The Walker owns at least two pieces from that series.