YOLO
Blind Sight #2
In memory of Laquan McDonald
(Sept 25th, 1997 - Oct 20th, 2014)
Laquan McDonald was a 17 years-old Afro-American shot 16 times in 15 seconds with a fire gun by a Chicago Police Officer.
The footage from the police car is terrifying. The boy is walking alone in a parking area, with a knife in his hand. 8 policemen arrive on the scene. One of them get out of the car and fires 16 shots at the boy.
It’s hard to understand how it is possible that 8 armed policemen find no other way to stop a boy than t shoot him. And even more to the point, why 16 times? The footage clearly shows that the boy is immediately hit. He falls to the ground, but the cop continues to shoot, and shoot, till the gun is empty.
With impressive precision: all 16 shots hit the boy.
The YOLO artwork by Giangiacomo Rocco di Torrepadula (GG) is the second project of the "Blind Sight" artistic research dedicated to unveiling the mechanisms of racial prejudice through a personal awareness triggered by art and photography.
The author asked a worldwide champion shooter to replicate that horror on a metal plate using a gun of the same type and at the same distance, firing according to the placement of the bullets shown in the autopsy.
The result is 16 frames, one for each bullet, and a final frame with all the shots, almost an anthropomorphic mortal map with the original autopsy notes digitally overlapped. The sturdy metal plate devastated by the same blows received by the young Laquan is a squeeze in the stomach for the observer, immediately stimulating strong sensations and feelings.
YOLO, You Only Live Once, so reads the tattoo on the back of Laquan's left hand, a terrible warning consumed in just 15 seconds.
The YOLO installation stages the final frame, the most impressive one. Under that frame, another image shows all the pages of the autopsy overlapped, an estranging figurative cacophony of characters. On the sides, two images depict the text pronounced by the jury who condemned Jason Van Dyke (the policeman who shot): recognizing him an aggravating circumstance for each of the 16 shots fired. To emphasize the horror, the jury repeated the same formula 16 times, one for each of the fireshots. We the jury find the defendant Jason Van Dyke guilty of aggravated battery with a firearm first shot…We the jury find the defendant Jason Van Dyke guilty of aggravated battery with a firearm second shot …. We the jury find the defendant Jason Van Dyke guilty of aggravated battery with a firearm third shot…..
The project is also in the dummy book "YOLO - in memory of Laquan McDonald", printed in a limited edition of 30 copies, all numbered and signed by the author, printed on a precious hand-bound Tatami fine-art paper. In collaboration with Luca Panaro - Chippendale Studio.