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The Girl with a Gun

Lynn Hyman Butler

Photography

For her series Coney Island Kaleidoscope, Lynn Hyman Butler photographed while in motion “to capture the sense of time passing.” The resulting effect produces dreamscapes saturated with color: riderless kiddie horses hypnotically glide in The Red Horse; a teenager holds either a toy gun or the real thing in The Girl with a Gun.

Butler wants her photographs to serve as reminders that “the decision of whether to save or relinquish landscapes such as these will be of increasing urgency.” The nighttime scene behind the gun-toting girl features neon signs for the famous El Dorado Carousel, the Wonder Wheel, and the Cyclone, which alert the viewer to the potential dangers of demolition and development — to what can still be lost.
MEDIUM Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome)
DATES ca. 1988
DIMENSIONS image: 9 x 13 1/4 in. (22.9 x 33.7 cm) sheet: 11 x 13 3/4 in. (27.9 x 34.9 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed bottom verso in pencil: "Lynn Hyman Butler 4/25"
COLLECTIONS Photography
ACCESSION NUMBER 1991.59.6
CREDIT LINE Gift of Ilford Photo Corporation
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Lynn Hyman Butler (American, born 1953). The Girl with a Gun, ca. 1988. Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome), image: 9 x 13 1/4 in. (22.9 x 33.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Ilford Photo Corporation, 1991.59.6. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1991.59.6_PS4.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 1991.59.6_PS4.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Lynn Hyman Butler
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