Stuck in a bottleneck
Monday, March 31, 2008
I saw a gory bloodied bottleneck in a parking lot today, and it reminded me of something that has been quietly bugging me for years, ever since a lunchtime lecture at Michaelis by Kendell Geers. At the lecture Kendell spoke about his own bottleneck piece, pictured below, saying that one of the things which made it a particularly South African work was the widespread use of bottlenecks for making pipes in South Africa. I was never able to take the guy seriously again.Why? Well, anyone who's ever smoked a bottleneck pipe knows that you can't use a beer bottle, because it's the wrong shape and all the dope falls out. This sounds like nit-picking, I'm sure, but bottleneck pipes were so much a part of culture back in their day that their characteristics were minutely known to anyone who was anyone or even knew anyone, across the length and breadth of art or politics. (And art and politics were a serious business, as were one's personal ethics.) So Kendell either knew he was giving his work false street cred, or he didn't know how to make a bottleneck pipe. In which case he has no cred at all.
Why should so minor a glitch be important? Perhaps it's not, perhaps nobody knows or cares enough about South Africa to take an interest in details like this. The thing is, though, he was selling himself as a South African with street cred, to Europeans who wouldn't know whether his street cred was real, and he faked it. South African street cred counts for a lot because people suffer for it, so to claim it falsely, even in a minor way, as only part of the meaning of a work, has a bad smell. The smell of a little want of integrity.
Labels: bottle neck, Kendell Geers
posted by Vince Condesini at 10:50 PM
12 Comments:
RIP Angus
Angus Fairhurst, one of the original Young British Artists who blazed such a trail through the 1990s, has taken his own life in a remote part of Scotland, it was announced today. He was 41.
from http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2269738,00.html
YES YOU CAN SMOKE A BOTTLE NECK FROM A BEER BOTTLE. DONT BE RIDICULOUS. JEEES.
YOU HAVE TO FIRST FINISH DRINKING THE BEER BEFORE YOU CAN USE THE BOTTLENECK FOR SMOKING A PIPE !!!!
IT ALSO HELPS IF YOU TAKE YOUR HAND OFF YOUR DICK ! ! ! !
WHAT SORT OF UPPERCLASS SNOB BULLSHIT IS THIS THAT YOU CANNOT SMOKE FROM A BEER BOTTLENECK ???
It doesn't work because it is too cone-shaped and so you when you pack your dope in there the it doesn't get enough purchase and once you like it and it starts burning it starts to shrink and the coal just falls right out. Usually all over your clothes, which is a secondary unpleasantness after the loss of your dope.
No. Black label quartz. perfect.
when I was a kid we used to knock a hole in the bottom of a teacup, which was buried in damp soil. The smoke was drawn through a short piece of garden hose. Pipe took about a quarter of an arm to fill and was a 'communal' experience. If you lie on your back you can smoke a megaphone pipe.
What a load of bullshit. Who cares? There will always be someone with a more authentic anecdote.
You’re not supposed to hold the bottle neck downward, and then any one will do, but far more surprising is the bloody bottleneck recalling Kendell Geers rather than another perhaps not as widespread South African multi purpose bottleneck ‘street cred’ phenomenon - press into the flesh of your opponent and twist.
er, sorry, but if kendel was faking it, that makes him even cooler.
and thats why we love you jon
You are reaching Lizza Littleworth
Yes you are! I'm touched, it's been great.
Halfwit, braindead little Lizza questions what she does not understand. Good girl. Keep it up. Very, very amusing.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home