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EMAIL TO A FRIEND PRINT VERSION

BY DAVID B. MOYE
SEPTEMBER 10, 2007

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. (TNA) – Everyone has their own way of remembering the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and one artist prefers to honor the victims with booty – lots of it.

For the last six years, Steve Maloney has been commenting on life in the post-9/11 world through a series of art projects created from confiscated airport loot and booty.

Artist Steve Maloney takes items retrieved by airport security and turns them into works of art.

Maloney, who makes his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., has done 12 different booty projects in all, including a piece called “Booty Runway,” which features a ton of purloined items lined along an eight-foot runway. Maloney hopes to eventually create an 88-foot installation of the booty.

But his most significant may be his two most recent works: “Naughty Booty,” and “Liquid Booty.”

“Naughty Booty” features a variety of offbeat items such as leopard print handcuffs and various butane lighters with risqué sayings on them molded into a Vegas-style table. The other, “Liquid Booty” is made from confiscated liquids Maloney has poured into a 20-foot Plexiglas cube that is suspended by airport wire and buckles.

Maloney made about 30 phone calls to various airports around California in order to get enough materials for his art.

And while itt sounds strange, Maloney believes the “booty” is a form of “found art” that shows how life has changed in the last six years.

“My work represents how 9/11 has changed how we travel,” Maloney said. “We’ve given up some freedoms in order to protect others.”

There’s a more personal reason why what is considered trash by airport security guards is a treasure to him.

“I look at the items and realize all these items were carried by individuals and I like imagining what they were doing with them,” Maloney said.

It’s probably not too hard to imagine how the leopard-print handcuffs were used, but even Maloney is still trying to figure what possessed one passenger to attempt to bring deer antlers aboard a plane.

Although art is in the eye of the beholder, Maloney figures his “booty” is a light-hearted way to keep the memories of 9/11 alive.

“The 9/11 memory isn’t as strong, but it’s still in everyone’s mind, and it makes this art significant,” Maloney said.

Wireless Flash News Service contributed to this story.

 

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