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Requiem (II & III), 2007
PETG, acrylic, nails and ball bearings
10 x 8 x 1 in (25 x 20 x 3 cm)
© Bill Kleiman
Requiem
Like a long-forgotten toy, “Requiem” could be found in the back of a “Brady Bunch”-era closet or, for someone in the Middle East, recovered as a hand-crafted souk trinket.
This simple, heat-warped, pachinko-like construction can still delight.
Its decorative Arabian geometry still glitters. Its corroded steel balls still scurry down rickety, nail-bound pathways to reach their resting place, safe from the pull of gravity. Its cheerful Hasbro-like manufacturer’s logo, white Arabic with a green background, is still legible despite the chips and scuffs of age and use.
The Arabic is the logo of Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian resistance movement that governs the Gaza Strip. Before its rise to power, Hamas often sent children and teenagers strapped with suicide bombs, filled with steel balls and nails, to target comparably-aged Israelis.