NO TONIC FOR THE TROOPS

 

So the great Rodney Graham, conceptual artist, which in this case included being a 

photographer, filmmaker, sculptor, musician and much more besides, has become the 

late, great Rodney Graham.  He was 73.

 

You may remember him from such art films as Lobbing Potatoes at a Gong in which he sits on a chair and throws (or lobs) potatoesat a gong some distance away.  This was apparently inspired by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd.

 

Some of the potatoes hit the gong, some inevitably missed, and the ones that hit were supposedly distilled into vodka.

 

But I do wonder how, after the lobbing, anybody could look at all the potatoes on the floor and tell which had hit and which hadn’t.  Maybe there was a system. Or maybe that was the joke.

 

Anyway, the end result looked like this:

 

Now, some people might say that’s an awful lot of trouble to go to for a bottle of vodka. But then some people just don’t understand art.