...absolute fetishism...

Paul Thek, Thek's Tomb, 1967.

Whoah nice! Add Paul Thek at the Whitney to my list of upcoming shows to see... opens 10/21.

Photo above is scanned from a Robert Pincus-Witten Artforum article of 1967, showing Thek beside his wax cast self-portrait... part of his most(?) famous piece, Thek's Tomb... or Death of a Hippie.

Thek's Tomb was shown at the Stable Gallery, where "one enters a spacious, rosily-lit and incensed haze out of which rises a large, three-tiered ziggurat"... inside the 11.5' tomb the wax cast... "All is 'petal and American vermilion' pink - the light, the garments, the Tomb interior, the shoes"... "pinned to the cheeks are discs of painted butterfly-wing patterns. A funerary necklace alternates these circles with passages of hair, ending in a pendant and a long wash of hair that runs down the length"... the mouth is part open, blackened tongue protruding... the fingers of the right hand are sliced off, placed in a pouch hanging on the wall.

This piece has since been lost.