The beer bottle is an industrial totem, indigenous to all political struggle, locally and globally. It has been used personally by the proletariat to numb disadvantageous working conditions. Collectively it has been upcycled into a weapon as a petrol bomb, used as a pipe to smoke marijuana, a candle holder, a self defense device and a container for home made remedies.
Capitalists recognize it as a golden calf. It is a symbol of industrial indigeneity.
In the 60s, political spheres wittingly altered the brand-name CASTLE for the South African beer, into a bilingual abbreviation for, Can Africans Stand Tall Like Europeans? And in Xhosa, Cinga Abazali Sidenge Thumela Le mali Ekhaya (Think of your parents you fool, send this money back home). Both expressions talk of an oppressed and dislocated circumstance, which the subjects are constantly mindful of, even when winding down over a casual drink, since that very moment was also extremely fleeting. It should not be unexpected as many Artists such as Thami Mnyele to Miriam Makeba were always reflective of the bane of an apartheid lifestyle, something that came to be known as Protest/Township Art.
In families across racial and geographical borders, the beer bottle has an effect as a symbol, in different languages and abbreviations, as a stimulant for a festive event or melancholic memory, it is an animistic ancestor, for all those who have been and still are in the industrial revolution.
Bhele Gallery 