Flux Reliquary
Geoffrey Hendricks, American, 1931 - 2018
1970
Clear seven-compartment plastic box with label on lid and on underside of lid identifying items (relics) in each compartment: turd, pebble in clear capsule, pen nib, white rubber band, nail paring in clear capsule, fragment of melted yellow plastic
Overall: 3 5/8 × 4 3/4 × 1 in. (9.2 × 12.1 × 2.5 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of the Friedman Family
GM.986.80.79
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Fluxus
Research Area
Fluxus
Not on view
Inscriptions
On paper label inside lid, upper left: FLUX RELIC NO. 4 / Holy shit from diners / of the Last Supper; upper right: FLUX RELIC NO.5 / The final stone that killed / St. James the Less; center left: FLUX RELIC NO.1 / Pen used by Theodore of Mopsuestia / to write his Nestorian errors; center middle: FLUX RELIC NO.2 / Fragment of rope by which / Judas Iscariot hung himself; center right: FLUX RELIC NO.3 / Finger-nails of Monophysitists; lower left: FLUX RELIC NO.6 / Nails from the cross / of St. Andrew; lower right: FLUX RELIC NO.7 / Sweat of Lucifer from / the heat of Hell
Label
Pay careful attention to the labels in Geoffrey Hendricks’s reliquary and notice the types of objects they describe. By giving everyday objects lofty religious titles and proclaiming them “sacred,” Hendricks highlights the potential absurdity of relics. In the tension between cheap, common materials and ascribed false origins, Hendricks reminds us that at the end of the day, holy objects are still just objects, and there is always a possibility of fraud. In calling this plastic case a reliquary, the artist both grants it the status of holiness and calls into question the veracity and validity of other purported relics. How can we approach the sacred with critique and the ordinary with veneration?
From the 2022 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 108, Journeys Beyond: Faces and Forms of Pilgrimage, curated by Emily Charland '19, Erbe Intern
Course History
Art History 83.06, Art and Life, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2023
Exhibition History
"Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life" Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 16-August 7, 2011; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, New York, September 9-December 3, 2011; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, February 25-May 20 2012, check list number 46.
20th Century Art, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 19, 1988-May 29, 1988.
A Space for Dialogue 108, Journeys Beyond: Faces and Forms of Pilgrimage, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire, August 27 - October 22, 2022.
Fluxus 25 Years, Williams College Art Museum, Williamstown, Massachusetts, November 7, 1987-January 3, 1988.
Publication History
Dick Higgins, Fluxus 25 Years, Williamstown, Massachusetts: President and Trustees of Williams College, 1987.
Jacquelynn Baas, Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2011, pp. 59-60, ill. p. 60, p. 102, checklist no. 46.
Provenance
Friedman Family; given to present collection, 1986.
Catalogue Raisonne
J. Hendricks, Fluxus Codex, New York, 1988, p. 263-264, no. 153.
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