A Czech-American artist started his own reliquary.

He had plenty of raw material: he lived in New York City. Through friends and friends of friends, he began to collect bits and pieces of celebrity which - through the magic of relics - were themselves imbued with the bizarre power of fame. In this way, Barton Lidice Benes collected everything from Bill Clinton’s half-sucked throat lozenge to a twig from Mao Tse-Tung’s broom.

Once word got out, he began to receive bits of history in the mail. Fragments of TWA Flight 800. Charred nails from the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Oil from Exxon Valdez, ash from Mount St. Helens, and a mosaic tile from Pompeii. Each piece is preserved and presented like a saintly relic. Benes’ collection - willed to the North Dakota Museum of Art - ranges from the macabre to the absurd.

Included is a pressed rose - one stolen from a memorial garden, by the artist himself. The garden in question was planted in the memory of Lidice, a Czech town that no longer exists - it was destroyed by the Communists. It is the artist’s middle name, given to him by his father, so that he wouldn’t forget.