‘Banned Booty’ artwork in Palm Springs made from TSA contraband

Scissors, nail clippers, bullets are all banned items in your airline carry-on, but are they art? Steve Maloney says yes.

The Rancho Santa Fe artist’s traveling exhibition “Banned Booty” opened this month at the Palm Springs Air Museum and will remain on display until the end of May. The show, also documented in a 2004 book of the same name, features artwork made from items confiscated at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.

Some of his creations: the “Houdini Booty Lock Up,” which combines barbells, a butane torch, corn-on-the-cob skewers and other pointy objects enclosed in a Plexiglas box and wrapped in chains. Scissors, knives and forks figure prominently in other pieces arranged on canvases with brightly streaked backgrounds.
What does this show say about modern travel?

I’m not sure, but the banned booty keeps on coming. The TSA Blog reported that last week the agency confiscated 39 guns, a stun gun disguised as a smartphone, grenades (“We continue to find hand grenades and other weaponry on a weekly basis”) and other taboo stuff. And that’s not counting the smoke grenades, body bags and knives allegedly found in the checked luggage of Yongda Huang Harris as he passed through LAX.

Maybe this suggests we all travel with too much junk, or that most of us don’t understand -- or don’t care about -- the meaning of pointy objects.

Contact: Palm Springs Air Museum, 745 N. Gene Autry Trail; (760) 778-6262.

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MaryForgione@latimes.com
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