Innercity Inhalers by Mat Collishaw

Mat Collishaw, a YBA, has released a series of 100 glass sculptures called Innercity Inhalers through Damien Hirst’s Other Criteria. The sculptures are “replicas of plastic smoking bongs used by improvising hedonists the world over”.

The crucial difference between Collishaw’s bongs and those of your average MacGuyver-ing college student is that Collishaw’s are made of Murano glass and silver leaf. Oh, and they also cost ~ $3,600 USD. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it!)

Each Innercity Inhaler is unique within the range of 100 pieces, and they all stand about 12 inches tall. Other Criteria adds this:

Debased interpretations of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Air de Paris’, these works address the polluting, but also mind expanding effects of inner city air.  One does not have to light the bong in order to get the desired effect – the visual distortion taking place when looking through the translucently coloured and partially melted bongs is a sensation not dissimilar to the perceptual disorientation of the drug smoker.

Living in Berkeley, I can totally attest to the mind-expanding effects of the city air. Sue me: I think Collishaw’s Inhalers are beautiful in a pricey, popjective kind-of-a-way. I hope one day, a rich person will invite me to his/her home, and I will see an Innercity Inhaler on their shelf. Then, I’ll have an aha moment and explain that they need to immediately acquire a companion piece by Neil Wax (preferably Gluttony or Shame). And we will laugh and laugh. See all the Innercity Inhalers here.