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Rainey Knudson

48. Mel Chin, Combo Club

Mel Chin, Combo Club, 1993. Etching with aquatint, burnishing, and photo etching in black and silver on handmade paper, edition 27/50, approx. 31 × 23 inches.


It seems like a joke, but a search for “police billy club” returns this exact model, although the comically graphic handle faces downwards, not up, in the version I saw. In this handsome print, Mel Chin has flipped the weapon erect and fitted its tip with a tubular metal microphone. As devices for wielding power, the nightstick and the microphone can both be fearsome, and both—which I think is the rather wry point here—have a decidedly male aspect. If your two favorite things are karaoke and A Clockwork Orange cosplay, has Mel Chin got the prop for you!




 

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