CHART OF ARMS
7 Inkjet prints, each 112 x 120 cm, 2003

This is an incomplete chart that documents the world’s current small arms market. 910 weapons produced by 171 companies in 47 countries have been collected from Internet sources and placed in alphabetical order, reminiscent of an insect collection. Most of the products can be purchased online. Hunting arms are not covered. Perhaps the most important element of Chart of Arms is, despite its huge dimensions, that it is an “incomplete” chart of the global small arms market. Acknowledging the impossibility of such a task is already a statement in and of itself; the small arms market is a hefty part of the world’s economy and researching the diversity, demands, and supply of this market is grim, to say the least.

Baring the products of this destruction market through the classification methods that are familiar from natural science museums, Vardarman’s Chart of Arms is humanity at its worst. As the viewer’s eye inevitably wonders across the many tones of steely gray, the purpose of these objects is forgotten. The various sizes, shapes, and uses of the weapons, if one thinks about it, makes it obvious just how far the fetishization of violence has gone. And it is through this leveling of all of these objects that Vardarman makes a point about the nature of violence on an individual level today.