LA Weekly has a great profile of prankster artist Jeffrey Vallance, who has a new exhibition called Relics and Reliquaries in Santa Ana, California.
I first learned about Vallance from Re/Search's Pranks book, where he recounted his now-famous 1978 art stunt of taking a thawed frozen supermarket chicken to a pet cemetery in Los Angeles and straight-facedly requesting it be given a proper burial. (The tombstone read, "Blinky, The Friendly Hen).
His current exhibit contains bits and pieces of his past, each of which carries some kind of personal significance. The items are house in beautiful displays.
The fragmentary Orange Crush bottle, for example, bears witness to a childhood trauma. "One night during the summer of 1966," reads the accompanying text, "our family went to the Canoga Park Drive-in Theater to watch Fantastic Voyage. My stepfather brought along bottles of Orange Crush soda. He did not explain why, but instead of a bottle opener he had brought along a pair of pliers to open the bottles. At a certain point during the movie, he said that he would open everyone's bottles with the pliers. But for some reason, I didn't want my drink just yet."Later, when I got thirsty, my stepfather refused to open the Orange Crush for me. Instead he handed me the bottle and the pliers. I tried in vain to open the bottle – after about 15 minutes I managed only to shake it up, real good. At last, in one violent cataclysm, the bottleneck exploded, sending sharp shards of glass and sticky orange soda pop all over the seats, the ceiling, the windows and the rest of the family. Boy, was I in trouble now! And still thirsty."
