Fetish

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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

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.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.