Even the most dedicated fitness fanatic has a vice— be it a chocolate chip cookie obsession, an online shopping addiction, or a taste for…cocaine infused yoga?
Last weekend Miami Beach hosted Art Basel, an annual congregation of Modern Art masters, curators, and enthusiasts. Since Basel (as the digital media-ites in attendance would refer to it), is just as well known for its spirited nightlife as it is for it’s crazy-cool art exhibits, we’re not particularly surprised that the party drug made an appearance in some of the work on display, though we were taken aback by the artist’s medium of choice.
The design group that featured contemporary artist Jon Kessler’s cocaine yoga mat is known as Grey Area, “where art is made functional and the functional is made art.” When Grey Area commissioned seven artists to use yoga mats as canvases, their goal was to infuse art into the relationship between the spiritual aspects of yoga and the functional equipment of the exercise, for a complete sensory experience. The design group also sees a yogi’s state of mind as the ideal place to digest art: focused yet far away from the worries of everyday life.
According to their website Kessler’s mat is meant to satirize the conclusion of a yoga session. “Instead of rolling up the yoga mat to close a nourishing experience, the artist forces a shift; the practitioner rolls up a printed $100 bill as if about to ingest cocaine.” Since one of the most notable side affects of cocaine use includes feeling invincible, we can see the connection that Kessler is making here. Yoga is also known for it’s resulting I-can-do-anything mindset.
Would you invest in one of these unconventional yoga mats?