Fetish
Fetish
Artist
Clifford Rainey
British | Irish, born 1948
Place of OriginLondon, England
Date1989
DimensionsH: 23 3/4 in. (60.3 cm); W: 9 3/4 in. (24.8 cm); Diam: 10 3/8 in. (26.4 cm)
MediumRecycled cast glass, plate glass, nails; cast and assembled
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineGift of Dorothy and George Saxe
Object number
1991.101
Not on View
Collections
Published ReferencesVallongo, Sally, "Gifts of Glass: Couple's Collection Helps Art Museum to Rebuild," The Blade (Toledo), June 14, 1992, p. 1 (ill.), 2.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art; The Saint Louis Art Museum; Newport Beach, California, Newport Harbor Art Museum; Washington, D.C., Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Contemporary Crafts and the Saxe Collection, 1993-1995, pl. 45, p. 73, cat. no. 81, pp. 203-204.Label TextThe Coca-Cola bottle, one of the world’s most widely recognized symbols of consumer culture, was originally designed by Earl R. Dean of the Root Glass Bottling Company in Terre Haute, Indiana (later acquired by the Owens-Illinois Company of Toledo). Patented in 1915, it was soon modified into the famous “contour bottle” that is recognized around the world. The Coca Cola bottle has become a running thread throughout much of Irish sculptor Clifford Rainey’s work. Here, the iconic design is transformed into a segmented archetype, abraded and aged to the appearance of an archaeological relic and presented as a festish—an object eliciting unquestioned devotion and respect. The larger-than-life commercial icon is embedded with rusty nails in its cast sections, separated (interrupted) by plate glass shards, in an attempt to “cancel” the powers retained in its familiar shape.- Glass
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
Late first century BCE to early first century CE
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