The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Ashtray

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KITH & Notorious B.I.G Ready To Die Ash Tray (2021)
‘With the intention of improving its inclusion and diversity efforts, KITH has revealed a partnership with the Christopher Wallace Estate. The brand has officially launched its second KITH x Notorious B.I.G. collection, promising to donate all proceeds to local schools around Brooklyn.’

 

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Katerina Jebb Balthus’s Ashtray (2015)
‘An exact ceramic replica of Balthus’ original ashtray, serving as a support for a scale 1 transfer of the image scanned in 2008. The artist Katerina Jebb explains how the project came about: “When, in 2008, I entered Balthus’ workshop at the Grand Chalet de Rossinière, left intact since his death in 2001, to proceed with a scanner to an exhaustive digital inventory of the objects therein, I was struck by the feeling that time is motionless, suspended there. Among them, one particularly fascinates me. It is an ashtray containing butts and ashes left by the heavy smoker Balthus. The cigarettes, long extinguished in this ashtray, awaited, in a poignant way, the human presence. Still there, seven years later, they made tangible the breath that had consumed them, close to the last.’

 

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SacredSimulacrum Roach Ashtray (2020)
Resin, plastic, cockroaches

 

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Rene Magritte Rosenthale ashtray (1970)
Designed and drawn by the artist. Limited edition (150 made).

 

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Sterling Ruby Ashtrays (2005 – 2019)
‘The ceramic pieces Sterling Ruby now calls ashtrays, were all initially made as glaze tests. Their form started out as a practical solution for containing pools of liquid, and used to determine color combinations and firing times for his larger ceramic works. Technically they are the evidence of the artist resolving questions, but instead of becoming artifacts of this investigation, they appear as microcosms of rightness with a pent-up physicality. The tests have taken on a life of their own and literally look like miniature, gloopy, rasping, and burbling worlds that offer up endless potential for the imagination. Well, some of them do.’

 

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Yayoi Kusama Ashtray (1988)

 

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Schafer and Vater Ashtray (1928)
‘A novelty ashtray from around the 1920’s or 30’s – a bald headed man singing Sweet Adeline. Rest the ciggie on his lower lip and the smoke will build up and billow out of his ears – an incense pellet can also be used. Made from hand painted porcelain. Part of a series of singing men ashtrays.’

 

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Richard Hamilton Ashtray (1979)
Enamel paint on yellow glass

 

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Yiwugo The Round bird’s nest glass ashtray (1994)
‘Our shop for the entity wholesale shop, located in the world small commodity city – yiwu, zhejiang province, the standard prices are wholesale price, the buyer must understand before take baby description of the shooting method in detail, have minimum quantity limit must be taken by the regulation to buy. Not scattered to sell.’

 

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Rinus Van de Velde Ashtrays (2020)
‘The unwieldiness of Van de Velde’s ashtrays, which are replete with little creatures at work or play, denizens of a miniature Bosch-like landscape, compels viewers to become complicit in their still-frame lives. To the extent that we might think to actually use these ashtrays, we become little gods, ominously lording it over the majesty of an alienated creation, exhaling plumes of fire.’

 

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Unknown Ashtray (1961)
‘I was in Kentucky last month, and while my mom went to an appointment, I speed-shopped the Somewhere in Time Antiques Mall along Highway 31W in Radcliff, Kentucky. It was super duper fun — there was lots to ogle, from all eras, at generally terrific prices.’

 

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Rose Eken Installation (2015)
Marlboro Cigarettes, Round White Ashtray with Cigarettes, Cigarette Butts

 

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Bob Dylan shares a cigarette with Andy Warhol (1965)

 

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Tom Wesselmann Smoking Cigarettes in Ashtrays (1999)
Liquitex on bristol board

 

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Yoshitomo Nara Fuck the Rotten World ashtray (2000)

 

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Ryan Gander A redesigned ashtray for Café Aubette (2011)
‘A reinterpretation of the 1927 Van Doesburg ashtray for Café Aubette in Strasbourg. It has only one place for a cigarette, whereas usually ashtrays have two or three because they go in the middle of the table. But in the para-possible view of the ashtray that the work represents, Van Doesburg never meets Mondrian, so it’s an ashtray for one person only. Van Doesburg designed the ashtray for Café Aubette, so it would have had numerous places for cigarettes because it would have been used for the café tables.’

 

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Claes Oldenburg Giant Fagends (1967)
‘Giant Fagends consists of oversized, urethane-foam cigarette butts crumpled-up on top of one another in a white, polygonal ashtray. They look like cigarette throw pillows made out of synthetic leather. Whatever negative, non-glamorous associations one has about cigarettes—carcinogenic smoke, grubby fingers, stained teeth, and so on—come to the fore here.’

 

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Jiří Černický Phoenixies (2007)
flies, glass, cigarettes

 

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Vik Muniz Untitled ashtray (1999)
‘Muniz takes the classic 1818 painting by Caspar David Friedrich, The Wanderer, and recreates it in ashes and cigarette butts which was then photographed and screened into a porcelain ashtray made at Limoges in Bernardaud, France. The rim of the ashtray is then hand-painted in silver leaf.’

 

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Isamu Noguchi Ashtray (1945)
‘In 1944, the cigarette was on the lips of allied soldiers, Ingrid Bergman, and Humphrey Bogart; for Noguchi—also a smoker—the cigarette was not only culturally iconic but a memory of youth: smart talk over cocktails and a husky-voiced cabaret singer and a last smoke, past midnight, with the person beside you in the sheets. Friends with architect/inventor/futurist extraordinaire Buckminster Fuller, and fascinated by modern manufacturing, Noguchi saw the invitation of the ashtray, simultaneously, as one of creative challenge and fabulous wealth. He would make the perfect ashtray, and every desk, every meeting-room table, every college classroom, every nightstand by the bed, every airport lounge would be outfitted; to Noguchi, art was everywhere, and so would be his ashtray.

‘The ashtray, which uncannily resembled an archetypical box of bullets (a square of 25), promised total, unthinking efficiency, and easy cleaning. The cigarettes could be placed this way or that, and extinguished between the bullets, and the disassembled object could be washed in the sink. Noguchi pitched it to Fuller for Fuller’s “Dymaxion” line (dynamic, maximum, tension). Fuller politely deferred, as did the other outlets that Noguchi approached. The consensus was that the manufacturing of the device would be overly expensive; the dymaxion ashtray was too complicated. But also, the bullet ashtray was a miss; Noguchi, overwhelmed by history, had produced an exquisite iteration of mid-century horror.’

 

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Monika Mogi Ashtrays (2019 – 2021)
“Being homesick, I wanted to create my own version of a snack ashtray – one that exists in my dreamworld,” 28-year-old Mogi says of the fantasy venture she’s aptly titled Snack Monika. ​“I used to collect signs that I found visually striking, some from real places that hold a special memory for me.”

 

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Peter Fischli/David Weiss Untitled (Very Small Bucket) (1994)
‘Peter Fischli/David Weiss’s replicants refuse to give us any insight into their inner nature and structure, which we, as products of a scientific age, automatically want to investigate. Instead, we are radically confronted with a surface that cannot be penetrated because it conceals nothing but a void.’

 

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Pablo Picasso Ashtray “Bird with Worm (Oiseau au Ver)” (1952)
Glazed earthenware with oxidized paraffin decoration

 

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Ben Churchill Ashtray Cake (2018)
‘Ben Churchill, 31, has created the unorthodox masterpiece that appears to look like a used ashtray. The British chef, who is based on the outskirts of London, fills his diners with not only tasty puddings but also apprehension and confusion. He shows how he brings the displeasing to see dishes to life by using ingredients such as bubblegum meringue dust, that replicates the mould of an orange, to modeling chocolate and syrup that appear to look like cigarette butts.’

 

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Alina Szapocznikow The Bachelor’s Ashtray (1972)
Colored polyester resin and cigarette butts

 

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YOURNELO Modern Lighted Lips Ceramic Cigarette Ashtray Holder for Home (2017)
‘Windproof, deep enough for keeping ash inside.the piece is finished in durable glaze.’

 

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Jon Pylypchuk I wish my parents were still alive (2012)
Silkscreen on ceramic ashtray

 

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TotalCadeau Coughing Lung Ash Tray (2008)
‘Designed to look like a pair of lungs! This coughing and screaming ashtray depicts how harmful smoking is for your body. The ashtray bursts out in a disturbingly realistic coughing and screaming fit as soon as a cigarette is placed over it. If the auditory pleas are not enough, the visual image of the lungs deteriorating with every cigarette should make any smoker think twice!’

 

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Salvador Dali Air India Ashtray (1967)
‘Designed by surrealist artist Salvador Dali in 1967 for Air India. This ashtray was to be given out to Air India first class passengers. The ashtray is composed of a shell shape with a serpent twined around its perimeter and supported by 3 surrealist swan elephants. Dali requested to be paid with a baby elephant so he could achieve his long life dream of following in Hannibal’s footsteps and re-enact the crossing of the Pyrenees 2000 years ago.’

 

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Wayne Dalton Alien Genesis – Unreal engine ashtray (2019)
‘Alien Genesis is a real-time in-game modulated sci-fi interior personal project based around the Nostromo from the 1979 movie Alien.’

 

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Paul Evans and Phillip Lloyd Powell Ashtray (1956-57)
walnut, pewter

 

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Emmett Moore Butt Ashtray (2018)
Cigarette Butts, Borosilicate Glass, Epoxy Resin

 

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Unknown Uranium Vaseline Glass Ashtray (1945)

 

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César Mao Ashtray (1968)
Ashtray in cast aluminum representing the president Mao Tsé Toung.

 

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Unknown Speed Darlington Ashtray (2021)
‘Nigerian rapper and singer Speed Darlington has taken to social media to lament bitterly after a sculptor made a mess of his face. According to the singer, he ordered a custom-made ashtray from a sculptor and sent a picture as reference. However, he got an artwork completely different from what he ordered. Infuriated by this, Speed Darlington took to his page to rant, threatening to sue the sculptor if he doesn’t correct the artwork.

“The carver fucked up I don’t fucking want this ashtray, this is not my face everything is not funny I don’t fucking want this start over or I will start case 😡. This one took 10 days only God knows what my real face is going to take swipe left to see the picture I sent this man that he cannot get right. In his mind he believe if we laugh long enough I’ll just throw my money away and accept it; because somebody put a spell on my head that I’m always going to be looking for a laugh even if it cost me money👎🏿. Yeah right!”

 

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Vanessa Brown Ashtray Earrings (2018)
‘One of Brown’s most iconic works is Ashtray Earrings, 2018. They are the size of two coffee tables, with a giant filtered cigarette, also made of steel, resting on one. The ashtrays are also a set of giant, unwearable earrings. Positing bad advice, “Everyone should be forced to smoke,” the singer Joni Mitchell told her biographer, Michelle Mercer.’

 

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Nicole Wermers Untitled Ashtray (shells) (2018)

 

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“I need a smoke after a long day, but I don’t want to get ash all over my new carpet! Luckily for me I have my slave girl who is more than happy to serve as my human ashtray!”

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Warning: I’m down with a bad cold or mild flu or something, and today’s p.s. will not be at its best. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thanks. Oh, we don’t know about other events yet. The Pinault people did a recording of the walkthrough, and we need to get it from them (hopefully in the next day or two) before we can approach other venues so they’ll know what we’re proposing. We’re scheduled to have a Zoom with our film producer this week, and then hopefully we’ll know where we are with the fund-raising. Awesome that you had an awesome time with Anita! I was pretty sick all weekend, so my Halloween was a wash out, unfortunately. Worriedteen will do nicely, good eye, and thank you. Otherwise, and granted I’m very hazy brained, but TrannyVenus seems like fun, and NotUrType could be a keeper. Love’s lack of sparkling brain cells this morning can only think to offer you the ashtray of your choice, so … ?, G. ** David, Hi. I’m imagining all of the weekend’s slaves sitting around a campfire listening wide-eyed to you regaling them with your life story. Thanks, hoping the sun’s domination of the morning sky will portend my approaching healthiness. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy day after! As internally soggy as I was from the neck up, I nonetheless got some solid head banging and grinning time in on Saturday thanks to Play Therapy and nothing else. As soon as I’m fit, ‘Katalin Varga’ goes in the queue. Thanks! My US friends have very similar stories. Unless I’m missing something, Parisians continue to toe the line. Excellent that you’re in the swing and know it, pal. ** Bill, Hi. Hm, my memory of ‘Broadcast Signal Intrusion’ is only that it seemed pretty good, odd enough, but not, like, amazing or anything. But, again, my brain is 3/4 rock this morning. Any Halloween doings? ** Steve Erickson, No, I’ve seen no trace of Magnoti on the s/m sites, but I did come across his escort profile ages ago. I’ll hopefully see the new Wes Anderson this week, but, given that I love all of his films to one degree or another, I’ll be surprised if I agree with you. ** G, Hey, G. Mine was low key too, which I quite enjoyed. No, as I keep saying, I’m sick with something and have been since Friday night, so my weekend was a nothing. If I can fake myself alert and energetic with espressos, I might go to Salon du Chocolat today, which would make up for it. How was your big H? ** James Champagne, Thank you, James! I hope yours was a blast. ** Bob, Hi. The phone number was altered, as are other things in the profiles to protect their authors’ identities. It’s really best if you think them as fictional characters because with the changes I make to disguise them, they might as well be. If you want to find the sites I use you can just do a google search for s&m-oriented hook-up and social media sites because they’re all out there and findable. They’re not hidden away on the dark web or anything. ** T., Hi, T. Oh, man, sorry about the end of your relationship. I hope your sounding okay about that means you are. Sadly, being ill did pretty much kill my Halloween, but then again I guess there’s something Halloween-ish about being ill? Watching horror films often makes for the best possible Halloween, so, cool. Nothing here. I don’t think Parisians trick-or-treat, or maybe in the super wealthy arrondissements? Ha ha, wow, that’s pretty giddy. Seriously, though, if I can somehow psyche and medicate myself up enough to hit Salon du Chocolat today, giddiness will be my destiny. But it’s doubtful. I hope your Monday goes to Salon day Chocolat and returns to you with 15 big garage bags full of the creme de la creme. xo. ** Right. Today the blog presents you with a whole bunch of ashtrays. See you tomorrow.

15 Comments

  1. Dominik

    Hi!!

    Yeah, right, this sounds absolutely logical. I guess I got a little excited, haha. I keep my fingers very tightly crossed for your meeting! Please let me know if you find out anything shareable!

    I have to agree with your choices again – not that I’m the least bit surprised. TrannyVenus was my favorite of the batch.

    Mmmh, I think I’ll go either with Jiří Černický’s last installation or Jon Pylypchuk’s ashtray. Thank you, love! Love paying Health a shamelessly huge amount of… well… whatever currency Health uses to settle over you gently and immediately. How are you? Od.

  2. Ashhh

    Oh, I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling unwell. I just googled Salon du Chocolat and it looks like a dream… Maybe that will do the trick, or perhaps rest is the best thing. I didn’t do anything particularly Halloweeny either… J & I were also under the weather so we stayed in and rewatched The Crucible. I deeply felt the lack of my annotated copy of UGLY MAN, which I stupidly lent to someone a month ago. I also need it for teaching the short story, and need it generally, I don’t know what to do about it. I’m angry at myself. This happens every time I lend a beloved book of mine out of politeness or momentary madness. On a brighter note, one of my close friends is having his graduation ceremony today, so I am just about to wrap his copy of The Sluts, which I can’t wait for him to read. I would like to collect so many of these ashtrays – those ones by Monika Mogi immediately stood out to me and the description made me like them even more. I would like to own Roach ashtray and I like the one by René Magritte, too… sort of iconic. The cake one is a bit too disturbing pour moi. Would you like to have any of these in your house?

  3. _Black_Acrylic

    Thank you re Play Therapy! I hope it managed to alleviate your yucky cold symptoms somehow.

    Ah, now this is a day to make me nostalgic for cigarettes. Must be coming up to 20 years without them so it looks like that habit is well and truly kicked, though. In 2017 I saw an Alina Szapocznikow retrospective at the Hepworth in Wakefield and it was really excellent. Had that ashtray sculpture in it too. Her work was so massively ahead of its time, certainly Sarah Lucas’ 90s stuff owes her quite a debt.

    My short story was retitled and has become my first submission in a very long time! Should find out in a couple of weeks so fingers crossed.

    • Misanthrope

      Btw, you should ask Rigby about London and their attitudes toward the ‘ro now. You’ll never travel there again. 😉

  4. Bzzt

    Hey DC!! Great post today, I don’t smoke but I admire the form. Sorry to hear you’re feeling under the weather, hope you get some much-needed rest. For your sake I will just keep today’s comment quick–one, my essay comes out on Wednesday, hooray! I’m excited. I’ll send you a link once the piece goes live. Two, surprise news: I am flying to Paris on the 10th. Also hooray!! I am gonna stay with a friend of mine, and then after Paris I’ll go to Berlin and then maybe to Italy. I don’t have my itinerary nailed down just yet. I would love to hang out while I’m in town, if you have a free moment please let me know. I’m also definitely open for suggestions of what to do, I mostly just want to do a lot of walking and sightseeing. I read so much Jean Rhys this year and I want to pretend that I’m in a Jean Rhys novel. I want to be a flaneuse. Ed suggested I read some Colette to get in the spirit so I’m gonna do that, do you like Colette? Anyway hope your cold gets better. Lemme know if you’ll be around next month. 😉

  5. David

    Camp fire.. ha!!! nice thought there… Remember Dennis Nilsen?? He flushed his fags down the toilet… his joke sort of… to the police….. i was in a porno once where I got caught smoking… not by Dennis Nilsen though… by some other geezer.. hope you are feeling better soon.!! Big hug!!!.. I now have one line only on the covid test… thank fuk!! Stay safe!! ×

  6. Bill

    That ashtray cake, yikes. Also loved the Van Der Velde and Ruby ashtrays. Probably not enough to take up smoking though.

    You probably know this:
    http://www.thejeromeproject.com/blog/charles-devouring-himself-by-jerome-caja

    Sorry to hear you’re not back to 100%. Soon, I hope. Did some kicking around on Sunday, but nothing particularly Halloween-y. (Passing by the long line of youngsters waiting to get into Rocky Horror doesn’t count.)

    Decided I should read some Muriel Spark finally. I’m enjoying Memento Mori, but some of the humor seems a bit cruel. I’m trying to do a better job engaging with aging family members, so that probably influences my reading.

    Bill

  7. T

    Hey Dennis. I’m usually the highly irritating never-buys-their-own-fags-and-is-always-asking-other-people-at-parties kind of smoker but I would gladly start a regular habit to honour these ashtrays in the proper way. I liked the Szapocznikow especially. Thanks about my breakup. It’s a long and as-expected kind of a story, briefly put I’m sad but ok. Since I’d already moved to France we’ve been spared a lot of the mess of disentangling. Hoping that, firstly, your cold was banished to the past by either time’s passage or medication, and secondly you made it to the Salon du Chocolat! 15 garage bags of chocolate would be pretty amazing. Please give me the lowdown if you did go/ate/bought anything delectable. Hope Wednesday comes bounding up to greet you wearing a mask with a photo of its own smiling face printed atop it, xT

  8. Damien Ark

    Hope you feel better soon Dennis! Sending love. Drink lots of tea, get some good rest, and have a nice soup. <3

  9. Steve Erickson

    I hope your cold ends quickly, especially since it began on Halloween!

    I returned to New York today. with my parents, I went to a local shopping mall yesterday. It was rather shocking to see a place where I spent so much time as a teen now operating with 2/3rds of its stores closed (but a record store still open, surprisingly.) I wish I had brought my phone so I could take some “liminal space” photos.

    “Fuck The Rotten World” is a nice combo of clean, simple design and angry sentiments.

  10. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Sorry about your being sick. You do realize that almost every time over the past 15 years that one of us has had a cold or flu, the other’s had it too, right? You better not get me sick…because I’m going to Cornstalkers Friday night! A little late but it’s still open and the kids still want to go. 😀

    Hope you feel better.

  11. David Ehrenstein

    In “Hollywod Babylon” Keneth Anger claims those in the know in tinseltown referred to James Dean as “the human ashtray” as he liked to have gys put out their cigarettes in his flesh.

    In the excellent biopc “Love is the Devil” there ‘s a scene in which George (Daniel Craig)put out his cigarette in Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) — first apologiing for the exquisite pain it will cause.

    KALPEN MODI TO MARRY !

    I always thought “Harold” was the man forhim.

  12. rigby

    hey Coop! hope you managed to get through that bug and enjoy Halloween properly. Missy told me you managed to get that BSJ page resurrected.. (& my fellow Johnson fan group will be able to check it out now) great job.
    Currently going through your run-up posts.. some great stuff here so mucho gracias!

  13. Rafe

    Hi Dennis, these are awesome! You should check out Madison Polidoro’s work. Her ashtrays are wild. Also re-read I Wished last night–even more amazing second time around. Feel better :–>
    https://www.madisonpolidoroart.com/10tonfetus-gallery/

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