Summer 2014 – a time of war in Gaza. A news flash appeared on my phone: “An arsenal of weapons seized on a ship at sea". The image of endless weapons on a ship stayed with me – not for its violence, but for its order, its abundance, its almost aesthetic appeal. It made me think about how easily destruction becomes design. That was when I started collecting toy guns.
The Gun Collection is a critique of consumer culture, design ethics, parental responsibility, and the toy industry – of how, from infancy, across all ages and genders, we are taught that weapons are toys, and that killing, even in play, is acceptable.
The triptych was created in response to Operation Protective Edge – an image of weapons at sea, a news headline, and a lump of fear stuck in my throat. What began as curiosity about how a collection of toy guns might look soon revealed something deeper – the manipulation behind the objects, the seductive power of the destructive tool that normalizes violence from childhood.
Hundreds of toy guns and rifles – an elephant that shoots, a unicorn that shoots, a Psy Gangnam Style figure that shoots, water pistols, LEGO, Playmobil. They are colorful, shiny, and playful – yet they share one purpose: to hit.
Visually rooted in the language of Pop Art, the work reuses the colors, materials, and aesthetics of consumer culture – bright plastics, everyday objects, and the seductive surface of desire — to expose the darker mechanisms beneath. Where Pop Art once celebrated mass production and the beauty of the banal, The Gun Collection confronts it, revealing how consumption, fantasy, and violence intertwine in childhood imagination.
The gun collection
Ready made
2014-2018
Exhibitions:
Toyism | Beit Meirov Gallery, Holon, 2018
Threshold of Certainty | The Container Hangar, Menashe | Curator: Einat O’Brien
Photos: Ran Yehezkel