Box Vox

packaging as content

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May 13, 2009

Miraculous Reliquary Packaging

Arm-HandReliquary

The nice blue photo of the hand-shaped Diesel Bottle (via the Dieline) reminded me of a medieval arm reliquary. Not that I can claim any credit for making this connection. Thomas Hine discussed arm reliquaries (and their connection to packaging) in his book, The Total Package:

“… the reliquary does not merely protect and give visual expression to a precious though inert object through visual expression. Rather, the relic is an active ingredient, a tool that the devout can use to literally accomplish the impossible… Like many packages, the reliquary expresses not its ingredients but its power.”

Pictured in the top row, left: Arm Reliquary of the Apostles, (Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim, about 1195) from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The x-ray to the right shows that this reliquary arm does indeed contain “One large fragment of an arm bone believed by the object’s creators to be the bone of a saint.”

Bottom row, left: another shot of the Diesel Bottle. (purportedly a cast of Diesel founder, Renzo Rossi’s hand); bottom right: an “on-going” artwork entitled “Reliquary” by John Salvest, begun in 1990  

…is constructed from a found glass hand and his own fingernail clippings, “began as a satirical homage to my Catholic upbringing and its odd history of venerating saint’s bones and splinters from the true cross, as well as an ironic commentary on the absurdly elevated status sometimes applied to artists in the modern era.”

He continues, “Every two weeks or so for the past eighteen years I have sat before the hand, opened its bright green lid, and dropped my freshly-clipped nails through its middle finger. Like an overturned hourglass, the hand is slowly but surely filled with physical evidence of my existence. What began as a light-hearted gesture has evolved into something else. Each deposit of bodily detritus into the jar is a bittersweet exercise. Generally speaking, we take satisfaction in the conclusion of our work, but in this case the completion date is unknown and not eagerly anticipated. “Reliquary” will only be finished when I am. With each passing year this habitual meditation on mortality has taken on added meaning as family, friends, and pets have been physically subtracted from my life.”

Arkansas State University news release, Aug. 22, 2008

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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