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"How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must a cannon ball fly, before they forever are banned?
The answer, my friend is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?
How many years must one man have, before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take, till he knows that so many people have died?
The answer, my friend...
How many years can a mountain exist, before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just didn't see?
The answer, my friend..."
The model is 38 cm high and made of plywood and wooden dowel rods of different thickness. An eccentric disc is fastened to the crankshaft and moves a pushrod up and down. The pushrod is fastened to the cowboy. So he rides on the missile and in addition he raises and lowers his arms with hat and lasso. The crankshaft is connected by an elastic band to a small barrel-organ which plays the melody of "Blowin' in the Wind". On the top of the box you can see a map of Iraq.
I got the idea by Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb". At the end of the film the US-bomber-pilot Major Kong succeeds in opening the jamming bomb doors. Sitting on the falling bomb he makes a virtue of necessitiy and shrieks with delight while he brandishes his hat.
The sculpture expresses my protest against the war of the American President Bush against Iraq. In my opinion the reasons for war that the American Government claims are not valid. I wish the American peace movement power and success.
In the sixties Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" was a symbol of protest against the Vietnam war and the establishment. It hasn't lost its actuality.