The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture
Hammer, nails, plank. June 2015.
A sculpture composed of a hammer nailed to a plank of wood.
The hammer is being empaled by the objects that it normally hits.
This can be interpreted as a metaphor for oppression and rebellion, and it’s also a study in irony.
How did the nails come to be impaling the hammer? Were the nails hammered into place by another hammer? In this case the nails may not be the downtrodden oppressed rising up to overthrow their oppressor using their own power, but are possibly the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer they’ve empaled.
Other versions of this piece have the hammer on a horizontal surface, such as on the top of a plinth, while further iterations use different numbers of nails. The vertical version shown here is in some ways disturbing because the vertical configuration gives more of an impression of the hammer being violently empaled rather than simply nailed down to the spot. It is also disturbingly suggestive of a crucifixion in Christian iconography.