August 26, 2008

hey kid, grab those cigarette butts for me, wouldja?

NPR’s Morning Edition interviewed Beck this morning about Modern Guilt, and, of course, his relationship with his grandfather, Fluxus member Al Hansen. I love this image of Hansen sending his grandkids to scour restaurants for cigarette butts out of ashtrays:

“He liked to say he was an alchemist,” Beck says. “But really, it was that he was broke. He couldn’t afford art materials. So I think he decided early on, ‘I’m going to make art out of what I have around,’ which was candy wrappers and cigarette butts. When I was a child, he used to send us to the garbage can. When we were at a restaurant, we’d go to all the ashtrays that were left — we used to collect all the cigarette butts for him for his artwork.”

Now that’s grandparenting.