I`ve been asking myself this question lately: What are the similarities between the Holy Grail and a can of aerosol, a can of spray? Quite a provocative question: how can an aluminium can be similar to the Holy Grail? What human demand do they both meet? For the apostles of advertisiment agencies [creative directors] the answer is simple, and for me – in a moment – all will be revealed.
I think of the place of objects in culture and human existence. According to Karl Marx there is a biological demand for material objects, which lies at the bottom of the processes of production, consumption and exchange. The biology of our organism forces us to need these objects, but we are not only biology, we are also spirit, and our spiritual lives need symbols and myths. The matter is spiritualized, the spirit materializes. How, when, what for?
I`ve been asking myself this question lately: What are the similarities between the Holy Grail and a can of aerosol, a can of spray? Quite a provocative question: how can an aluminium can be similar to the Holy Grail? What human demand do they both meet? For the apostles of advertisiment agencies [creative directors] the answer is simple, and for me – in a moment – all will be revealed.
I think of the place of objects in culture and human existence. According to Karl Marx there is a biological demand for material objects, which lies at the bottom of the processes of production, consumption and exchange. The biology of our organism forces us to need these objects, but we are not only biology, we are also spirit, and our spiritual lives need symbols and myths. The matter is spiritualized, the spirit materializes. How, when, what for?
Let me first talk about the can, one of the most important cans in our modern culture, meaning more than just a simple container. The Campbell`s Tomato Soup can. The first one in art, with a capital A, was introduced to us by Andy Warhol and consumed by the establishment like fresh Russian caviar. It became very important for people in the United States because it was something more than just a can of soup; it was a can of a home-made soup!
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| Andy Warhol "Four coloured Campbell`s soup can" |
Yes – it`s hard to believe, but Campbell`s soup is to Native Americans and emigrants what Warhol associated with home, with ssomething tasty and familiar. Warhol, when choosing Campbell`s soup, was guided by his memories from childhood, common to all people of his generation. Home, family, food – important matters, and art, even pop art is part of these important matters. This object – a tin can – as picked by Warhol from a whole range of objects, and by depicting it, the can, he created from this image an icon of pop art, an important part of mass culture, and one of the holy bearers of art as a valued part of modern culture.
The Campbell`s soup can graphic is the sign we are looking for – the sacrum. But it is not the Grail. We can`t talk of the conversion of someone who communes with it.
It is an important object – but not a symbolic one, it stimulates the senses, the memories and it nourishes American society physically but doesn`t unfortunately change its spiritual condition. I think that when consuming Campbell`s soup a man will not experience a conversion of any kind, he won`t evolve from Homo Sapiens into „Homo Religious”. I look for a can that is not only important; I look for a can that is symbolic, a can that is part of a myth, a living myth. A myth that permits changes in the human condition.
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| Dante Rosetti "Holy Grail" |
A Romanian religious studies scholar, Mircea Eliade, a mythology, yoga and shamanism researcher, described everyday human live this way: „A complete human being besides his historical condition knows other situations also: for instance the states of dreams, night dreams, melancholy and the spiritual absence, aesthetic admiration, escape from reality, etc. - and all these states are not at all historical.” As people we experience rhythms or forms of patterns in our lives many times, not only time in the historical term but beyond our historical present. All it takes is to listen to some good music, fall in love or pray to be able to set out beyond the historical present and reach „the eternal now of love and religion”. In our lives we experience momentsof a departure beyond the structure of linear time. Occasionally we have an opportunity to enter the cosmic, the circle, the eternal, in an imaginary time. We arrive at the beginning; we experience what was experienced by the heroes from our culture, gods and our ancestors. Myths and symbols enliven us again, and we face something Great.
What is the history of the aerosol can? It all began in 1927 when the Norwegian, Erik Rotheim, in Oslo, created the first aerosol. The term „aerosol” is a combination of two words: Greek aer – air, and Latin solutio – solution. In 1941 it was used by American troops as an insecticide, and then in the 50s and 60s it won the hearts of American women who were subjecting their hair to chemical treatment and asthmatics who had been cut off from treatment with the cannabis after this had been procribed by law and these useful and therapeutic plants could not be used [a law forced through by the DuPont corporation].
Cans are not the same and not every cup is the Holy Grail so that not every can of aerosol has the power of actualizing the Arthurian myth. The material and spiritual content of objects may differ. It`s the same with a bottle [or lamp, in a different version] in which the Genie waits: it`s obvious that the Genie does not live in every bottle. Therefore it`s not about the bottle but about its content and design that make us reach for another one, and go to another Open`er Festival. In the case of the spray can, the situation is similar. The model that interests me is classic 400 ml [with the perfect European, almost Hellenistic proportions]. A can, „object”, becomes the can, „subject”, because it has the power to convert the life of a person who communes with it. The mechanisms used to make the can and the materials of these 400 ml cans are the same in every can of aerosol, which means: tin container, a short fine stem [a fine pipe], liquid under pressure, and a „female” valve to push down.
The character in this story – Can – has enough power and influence to become one of the basic symbols of the Aerosol Culture. It has oodles of faces, names and colours.
Present day hierophants, the wise men of the Aerosol Culture, are coping with the design and modernization of the Grail. Is this a world of people locked away living only through the culture of a can of spray? Definitely not. Our Culture, with a capital C, contains hundreds of thousands of different cultures, whose participants travel around the world. They enrich each other. We have the Can2 designs for Adidas, Seak as a face of Es Pack, Loomit which promotes the campaign of Sony Ericsson and so on. All of them refer to what is important in this story, to an object that has the power to convert – the can.
It was well depicted in the newly released album, „400 ml”, with 400 visions of 400 artists. The numbers of forms were a result of the number of multi-continental groups of artists of the Aerosol Culture who took on the subject like any modern iconoclasts. Is this all about the number of cans in our world? No – we can still choose among the hundreds of colours, thousands of original designs from artists designing for the artistic market and for the commercial market, and the hundreds of people living this myth in metropolises and small towns. A can functions is everyday life in different contexts, and that also proves its power: it appears as a normal objects – a tool which is functional and effective, working with precision of an ophthalmic laser, or like a shotgun, changing the image of a city during its nocturnal voyages. It`s also a sign, a determinant of identity and a symbol of the conversion of Homo Sapiens into Homo Religious, or, if you prefer Homo Aerosolus. Because, whether we like it or not, we all live in our mythologies, most of them trivialized and secularized, but with their roots in some distant past.
It`s the equivalent to the myths of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. The Grail according to some researchers is a cup. In another, older version, it is a plate. King Arthur lived in the fifth/sixth century and the Arthurian myth was created by Cisterian monks.
This was not just the result of the imagination of these righteous and religious men, the story overlapped with many older myths – Celtic myths. Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy writer and researcher into Arthurian myth, describes the Grail as: „a cauldron of the Irish God, Dagd, a wonderful cauldron called by the Irish Undry, where everyone found what they were worthy of. Another God, Pwyll, the ruler of the land Annwvyn, possessed a cauldron which not only cooked food – it was embellished with pearls, it was a cauldron of inspiration and poetry.”
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| New York street art |
The character in this story – Can – has enough power and influence to become one of the basic symbols of the Aerosol Culture. It has oodles of faces, names and colours.
Present day hierophants, the wise men of the Aerosol Culture, are coping with the design and modernization of the Grail. Is this a world of people locked away living only through the culture of a can of spray? Definitely not. Our Culture, with a capital C, contains hundreds of thousands of different cultures, whose participants travel around the world. They enrich each other. We have the Can2 designs for Adidas, Seak as a face of Es Pack, Loomit which promotes the campaign of Sony Ericsson and so on. All of them refer to what is important in this story, to an object that has the power to convert – the can.
It`s the equivalent to the myths of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. The Grail according to some researchers is a cup. In another, older version, it is a plate. King Arthur lived in the fifth/sixth century and the Arthurian myth was created by Cisterian monks.
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| Knights of the Round Table and the Holy Grail. Painting of the fifteenth century |
This was not just the result of the imagination of these righteous and religious men, the story overlapped with many older myths – Celtic myths. Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy writer and researcher into Arthurian myth, describes the Grail as: „a cauldron of the Irish God, Dagd, a wonderful cauldron called by the Irish Undry, where everyone found what they were worthy of. Another God, Pwyll, the ruler of the land Annwvyn, possessed a cauldron which not only cooked food – it was embellished with pearls, it was a cauldron of inspiration and poetry.”
So the Aerosol Can, like the Grail, gives you as much, as much of the talent you have, and courage, a will to leave earthly matters and carry on, like the Knights around the round table, your own Quest, in search of what is important for you.
And King Arthur, the central personage and perfect model of Christian chivalry, is as Sapkowski puts it: God Gwydon, born in the process of change from god into hero, charakteristic of Celtic mythology.
And King Arthur, the central personage and perfect model of Christian chivalry, is as Sapkowski puts it: God Gwydon, born in the process of change from god into hero, charakteristic of Celtic mythology.
Here my story ends. But the question remains: Can a can be a Grail? It still sounds strange, but I see it on the Montana Gold company advertising: a golden can [a 400 ml can has a much better aspect than a plate or a cup] emerging from the dark depths of emtiness. Before, there was Nothing, Now, there is She, shining, golden, ready to convert – a modern Grail? For some it is, for some not so. The important thing is to follow your own path, even if you follow someone else`s footsteps. As Andy Warhol said: „In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes”. So it`s worth walking.
Translations: Urszula Skowrońska, Zofia Ziólkowska
Take Me nr 4 april / may 2010
www.take-me.pl
Bibliography:
Mircea Eliade, Obrazy i symbole, Wydawnictwo KR, Warszawa 1998 ["Images and symbols"]
Andrzej Sapkowski, Świat Króla Artura. Maladie, Supernowa, Warszawa 1998
Kitchen93, 400 ml. Collection
Ultra Violet, 15 minut sławy. Moje lata z Andy Warholem, 86 Press, 1986 ["Famous for 15 Minutes. My Years With Andy Warhol."]
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