Pass The Cobain On The Left-Hand Side

Lucas Jensen | October 2, 2008 9:00 am

Remember when Courtney Love said that her stash of Kurt Cobain’s ashes had gone missing? I’m sure the last place she wanted them to end up was in a German art installation. Hell, I think the last place any of us would want to end up is in a German art installation. The Guardian reports that artist Natascha Stellmach is planning to smoke Kurt Cobain’s ashes in a spliff as part of a multi-artist installation piece called “I Just Wanted You to Love Me.”

Read this description and try not to gag:

Natascha Stellmach’s Set Me Free is a “death cycle” in five parts, examining themes of suicide and desecration. The first part is a sound piece called Black in Here, pressed on a custom record and played on vintage equipment. Next is a “text-based work”, presumably art-speak for “short story”, with Cobain, Adolf Hitler, Diane Arbus and the Brothers Grimm meeting in a “hallucinogenic twilight zone”, according to the gallery statement. Later there’s photography – including a shot of the words “Set Me Free” written out in ash – and finally the pièce de resistance: an antique cigarette case holding a joint made up of hash and the remains of the former Nirvana lead singer.

A “hallucinogenic twilight zone” of Cobain, Hitler, Arbus, and the Brothers Grimm? Sounds about as fun as having my lungs jump out of my eyeballs!

And, of course, it’s all horse manure. Cobain’s ashes never went missing in the first place, says Courtnie Love’s publicist. That publicist gets to say all sorts of crazy things.

So, uh, is Stellmach lying or did she get bilked? I really hope it’s the latter.

Kurt Cobain’s stolen ashes to be smoked in a spliff? [Guardian] Cobain’s Ashes ‘Never Taken’ [Yahoo! UK]