Appetite for reconstruction

It was during the early nineties and I was just a little kid, when I came across Guns’n’Roses appetite for destruction album. The cover art depicting a half-naked, exposed woman on the ground, next to a surreal robot, which was attacked by something even more surreal.

I grew up in a quite progressive, emancipated environment. While you usually don’t realize what kind of values surround you growing up, most often you internalize those values. As said, something was not right about the image. And by not right, I mean: It was just plain wrong. It’s pretty obvious: respecting women, not beating them up, not raping them and not abandoning them half naked on the sidewalk were most certainly values that I had internalized. And yet, there was something electrifying about the way the woman was depicted – the rawness, the implied sexual violence – not that I had a clue about sexuality, or even sexual violence at that age anyway. Still, that image violated my values and yet I liked it. Kind of. Eventually I forgot about the whole thing.

Just recently I rediscovered a vintage Guns’n’Roses shirt from the nineties. It didn’t fit any more. I remembered the image from the album cover and realized it was time for a tribute, a reconstruction of the original image (or at least the part that inspired me).

Until a few days ago I did not even know Robert Williams’ name – he is the artist who drew “appetite for destruction” back then, was and is well known in the (not only) underground art and comic scene. If it had not been through this album cover, I probably would have never seen any of his art. But I did, it touched me, and it also inspired me. Thank you!

Also a big thanks to Fräulein M. for being part of this project!

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