Cigarettes will be part of unusual VMFA exhibit by Chinese artist

A half-million cigarettes shaped into a 40-by-15 foot carpet depicting the coat of a tiger is being created at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts by a Chinese artist fascinated by Virginia's historical connection to tobacco.

The work, being assembled by hand in VMFA's parking deck, is the third installment of Chinese contemporary artist Xu Bing's "Tobacco Project," which explores the production and culture of tobacco through the artist's eyes.

"He was interested in Richmond because of its rich connection to tobacco," said John Ravenal, the museum's curator of modern and contemporary art. "He was fascinated" with the region's tobacco farms, warehouses and factories, some of which he toured.

"He loves agriculture and industry, and he spent time on a farm himself as a young person as part of (China's) cultural revolution," Ravenal said.

Xu Bing's interest in tobacco extends to the texture of the leaf itself, as well as the "visuals" associated with the product's packaging and advertising, Ravenal said. "A lot of aspects of the exhibition are a celebration of the culture of tobacco," he added.

To gain further inspiration, Xu Bing, who also is vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, conducted research at the Library of Virginia and the Valentine Richmond History Center.

Xu Bing, 56, launched his Tobacco Project more than 10 years ago at Duke University, where he was an artist in residence. From there, he traveled to Shanghai to create the second installment of the trilogy.

He is collaborating with six former graduate students from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Arts to make the tiger skin carpet and other works, which include a 440-pound block of compressed tobacco embossed with the text, "Light as smoke."

Other items include books of poetry printed on cigarette paper and matchbooks, and a 40-foot-long reproduction of an ancient Chinese landscape painting on a scroll that will have a 40-foot-long cigarette burned down the length of it, Ravenal said.

Xu Bing is using tobacco as a subject and art medium to explore its historical and contemporary impact on human culture and trade. The exhibit will include positive and negative aspects, including Xu Bing's personal connection to a country where 50 percent of the men smoke and his father's death of lung cancer at 64.

"He has his own kind of tragic connection," Ravenal said.

The largest piece of the Richmond exhibition will contain 500,000 "1st Class" cigarettes, a discount brand. The museum, through its exhibition budget of privately donated funds, purchased the cigarettes – about 35,000 packs – at roughly wholesale price from a source in North Carolina, Ravenal said.

"One of our former trustees comes from a tobacco family, and she has a connection with someone who was high up in the tobacco industry," Ravenal said.

The former VCU grad students assembling the carpet, which should be completed by late August, are gluing "handfuls" of cigarettes at a time to the carpet base. The orange-and-white tiger image is being created by the placement of the cigarettes: the filter end is positioned upright for the color orange, the ignited end for the color white.

Xu Bing, who spent two weeks here in February planning and making templates, will return to Richmond several days before the exhibition opens Sept. 10 to "kind of fine-tune the installation," Ravenal said.

Altria profit up but cigarette volumes shrivel

Altria Group Inc. said Thursday that its fourth quarter earnings rose 7% even as cigarette volumes continued to shrivel, and the tobacco titan said the business outlook for 2010 remains challenging.
Altria (MO 20.01, +0.02, +0.10%) earned $725 million, or 35 cents a share, in the quarter ended , from $679 million, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue at the Richmond, Va.-based maker of Marlboro cigarettes rose 29% to $6.01 billion from $4.65 billion.
On an adjusted basis, the company said it would have earned 39 cents a share in the latest quarter.
The average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet Research had been for the company to earn 40 cents a share on revenue of $4.17 billion.
The company said the business environment for 2010 is likely to remain challenging, as adult consumers remain under economic pressure and face high unemployment.
Its tobacco operating companies also continue to see competitive promotional activity. It also expects that continuing state budget issues may lead to excise tax increase proposals in many states in 2010.
Altria forecast that its 2010 profit to be $1.78 to $1.82 a share, including estimated charges of 7 cents a share related to exit, integration and implementation costs, UST-acquisition related costs and SABMiller (UK:SAB 1,706, +14.00, +0.83%) special items.
Excluding items, profit is forecast to be $1.85 to $1.89 a share.
Altria spun off Philip Morris International (PM 46.21, -0.43, -0.92%) at the end of March 2008 in a move designed to separate the fast-growing overseas cigarette business from a U.S. unit hobbled by litigation worries, huge payments to states and seemingly inexorable year-on-year volume declines.
About a year ago, it closed on the acquisition of smokeless tobacco and wine maker UST.
During the period, Philip Morris USA's domestic cigarette shipment was down 11.4% while its flagship Marlboro brand's retail share was down 0.4 percentage point to 41.7%.
On the brighter side, smokeless tobacco brands Copenhagen and Skoal's combined volume rose 7.8% versus the prior-year period, driven by the successful launch of Copenhagen Long Cut Wintergreen "Marlboro displayed resiliency in an intensely competitive promotional environment, and we are also pleased with the strong retail share and volume growth of Copenhagen in the fourth quarter of 2009," said Michael Szymanczyk, chief executive, in the earnings report.
Shares of Altria rose 20 cents to $20.01

N.J. puts limits on sale of electronic cigarettes

TRENTON -- New Jersey has enacted restrictions on the sale and use of electronic cigarettes.
Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday signed into law legislation that prohibits the use of electronic smoking devices in workplaces and other indoor public places and prohibits their sale to minors.Electronic cigarettes look like the real thing but don't contain tobacco. Instead, they employ a metal tube with a battery that heats up a liquid nicotine solution. Users inhale and exhale the resulting water vapor.
The bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, a Republican from Summit, said the restrictions are a matter of erring on the side of caution because the health risks associated with e-cigarettes have not been fully determined.

Menthol Cigarettes More Addictive to U.S. Minorities

Menthol cigarettes appear to be more addictive for black and Hispanic smokers than regular cigarettes, a U.S. study has found.
Researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) analyzed data on 7,815 current and former smokers who'd reported at least one attempt to quit. The information came from the 2005 National Health Interview Survey.
Among adults who smoked menthol cigarettes, just 44 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics were able to kick the habit. But blacks and Hispanics who smoked regular cigarettes had higher quit rates -- 62 percent and 61 percent, respectively. Those rates were similar to quit rates for white adults.
The data also showed that non-whites tended to smoke fewer cigarettes a day and were about three times more likely than whites to smoke menthol cigarettes, the study authors noted.
"Historically, tobacco companies have targeted minority populations when marketing menthol cigarettes," study co-author Cristine Delnevo, director of the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at UMDNJ, said in a university news release.
"Although whites and non-whites have similar smoking prevalence rates, the fact that non-whites are more likely to smoke menthols, and those who smoke menthols are less likely to quit, could explain why minority populations continue to suffer disproportionately from tobacco-caused disease and death," she said.
Study author Daniel Gundersen said in the news release that "with the substantial number of smokers smoking menthol cigarettes, particularly among minorities, this is serious cause for concern."

In France the division "cigarettes" policemen is created.

However, in France until recently not too actively struggled with smoking cigarettes in public places. For example, the interdiction on cigarettes in the French bars and restaurants, theoretically, operates with 1991, however in practice all turns out exactly on the contrary: nobody forbids to allocate for smoking cigarettes special premises outside of a hall of restaurant, as is everywhere. Since January of the next year all will change: smoking cigarettes in institutions of a public catering.As an interdiction on smoking cigarettes in other public places will come into force in France since February, 1st. Infringers are threatened with the penalty at rate of 68 euro. By the right to check how this interdiction is carried out, are allocated not only the French policemen and gendarmerie, but also transport police and the whole army of inspectors. And still the French government hopes, that the interdiction will be observed not because of strengthening police measures, and owing to moral pressure of a society upon smokers.

Are Your Teenagers Still Being Pressured Into Smoking

In the world we live in today and in the past, many of our children are exposed to smoking on a daily basis. The kids have to deal with either smoking cigarettes or the peer pressure from a lot of their friends to try marijuana for the first time. It really does not matter if it is cigarettes or marijuana, they are both bad for your lungs. Some parents think that if their kids smoke marijuana when they are young, although it may not be good for them to experiment with, studies do show that most kids that do try it, usually do not keep that habit very long.

With marijuana the kids are just trying to be cool and fit in with their class mates an a lot of them do at least try it, but studies has proven that about 80% of them never end up smoking it after high school is over. It seems as if they lose interest in those high school days and the marijuana as well. But the same thing does not apply when it comes to smoking cigarettes, most kids want to try cigarettes for the first time just trying to fit in with the crowd. This is the age, and even before, that the parent should really express the important facts about not trying cigarettes or marijuana for the first time.

It is a proven fact that about 80% of kids that try cigarettes for the first time find themselves a few years later wanting to know why they just can not seem to be able to kick the habit of smoking cigarettes. Out of the high school, kids who try smoking cigarettes in high school are now hooked on a drug that has been covered up liked classified information. This is exactly what the cigarette companies know that they have created. There is no reason to advertise any more on television because their tobacco products are so entrenched in some parts of society, peer pressure is doing it for them.

All you have to do now days is just look around out in public at how many of us are lighting up on a regular basis. The kids that see this are just kids, but that does not mean their curiosity is not gotten by what they see. So, as parents we need to make sure that our kids are not being led into smoking cigarettes because when tobacco is compared to other addictive drugs, there really is no difference in the addictive quality or the damage it can cause to your health.

What It Takes To Stop Smoking Cigarettes

How do you make yourself stop smoking cigarettes? Many smokers have already reached the conclusion that they have to quit sooner or later and they also know that sooner is the better choice. Knowing that you need to stop smoking is one thing, getting around to actually getting it done is quite another. People that are addicted to other drugs often go to a rehabilitation center to help them kick their habits to other substances. It could be said that a smoker does not need that kind of serious intervention, but with no many that fail in the quest to quit, it might be something to consider after all.

If you are like most people that smoke, you probably could not afford to go to a rehab center anyway. So, most people do what everyone else has tried. They buy nicotine patches, nicotine gum, they try cold turkey, they join support groups, they get hypnotized, and any other trick they can think of. Sometimes these methods work for some and not for others. Some smokers can quit much easier than some. Some just give up and this the the worst mistake they can make. They get frustrated with the constant cravings. Of course, they should expect this since it is something they have been doing up to 20 times a day or more everyday for possibly years.

Willpower and determination are the two deciding factors whether you will be able to quit or not. It all boils down to that. You can buy all of the stop smoking aids you can find, but they will never work for you unless you are absolutely set on quitting. It is nothing that you will be able to accomplish with a halfhearted attitude. You either are firm in your decision or not. This can be said for many things you want to do in life. Saving money, losing weight, giving up drugs or alcohol. It all comes down to you.

It is a shame that so many smokers wait until they have developed some serious health issues before they can reach the point where they absolutely want to quit. Often, by the time they reach this point they already have a disease that will be with them for the rest of their life and sometimes this might not be very long. Do not let yourself be one of those that wait almost too late before you try to quit. Made your firm decision today. Everyday longer you wait to start the quitting process, the harder it is likely to be ands the more risk you are taking with what might be left of your good health.