How did Coca-Cola’s bottle have an impact on art ?
Originally, the shape of the bottle was inspired by a cocoa pod. We agree that there is no direct link with Coca-Cola, but they thought the pod has a strange but appealing shape.
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 1990s, many brands already tried to copy Coca-Cola in terms of logo and bottle. As a consequence, the brand asked several companies to re-design the bottle as “recognizable by everyone, even in the dark, and with a shape that, even if it would be broken, someone could tell what it was”. And this is how the bottle we know nowadays is born. Its unique shape has even inspired the art industry.
1) The Green Coca-Cola Bottles
Created by Andy Warhol in 1962, this piece of art is today exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. It represents 7 aligned rows of Coca’s bottles, as we can find them in a factory or a supermarket, which can illustrate the mechanical and standardized reproduction. The artist is playing between the advertising and the painting. This piece of art symbolizes the Occidental societies after World War II, particularly marked by an important economic growth. Households are more financially comfortable and the current consumption’ products is flooding the supermarkets. Warhol used the Coca’s bottle as the subject to represent the society because it was the most famous beverage in the world (already) at that time. The goal of this painting is to inform the viewer about his consumption and the society around him, so it can be seen as a criticism of consumerism. According to him “A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.”
2) Poetry of America
This painting was created in 1943 by Salvador Dali. We can see 4 athletes, a tower and a night sky. The man on the right is holding a Coca-Cola bottle while another small athlete is playing American football. This piece of art is seen as visionary because it combines Segregation, the love for American football and the power of Coca-Cola. It seems quite unusual to see 2 different worlds in one painting, one which represents more Greek mythology and the other the modern world. This painting, as the previous one, is part of the “Pop Art” movement, where Andy Warhol is one of the emblems.
1) The Gods Must Be Crazy
This film was made in 1980 by Jamie Uys. It is the story of a tribe in Botswana which doesn’t have any contact with the external world. One day, a Coca-Cola bottle falls from the sky so the tribe thinks it is a gift from Gods. In reality, the bottle comes from a small plane of tourism where the pilot threw it away after drinking it. Transparent and solid, the bottle is very useful for the tribe, so useful that everybody needs it at the same time. As a consequence, many quarrels emerged from the tribe.
This movie is humoristic but the story highlights the fact that there is a real imbalance between the 2 worlds. We can also see this film as a criticism of modern society but also a criticism of the “poorer world” with their late development.
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