Body fluids in art

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Artist's Shit by Piero Manzoni. Piero Manzoni - Merda D'artista (1961) - panoramio.jpg
Artist's Shit by Piero Manzoni.

Occasional use of body fluids such as blood, urine, feces, etc. in works of art is most common in shock art or transgressive art. [1]

Contents

Examples

Blood

Urine

Feces

Criticism and difficulties

Depicting objects of popular respect (religious subjects, flags, etc.) in art which includes body fluids can trigger public protests due to such material's historic association with dirtiness. The outcry about the Piss Christ photo is an example. [13]

In addition to the obvious difficulties of preserving perishable material, there can be regulations complicating transport by rail, truck, or aircraft of liquid body fluids due to the fluids' possible classification as dangerous goods. [14]

The sale of blood art via eBay is prohibited as eBay prohibits the sale of body parts, and classifies blood art as falling under this heading. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urination</span> Release of urine from the urinary bladder

Urination is the release of urine from the bladder to the outside of the body. Urine is released from the urethra through the penis or vulva in placental mammals and through the cloaca in other vertebrates. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction, and known colloquially by various names including peeing, weeing, pissing, and euphemistically going number one. The process of urination is under voluntary control in healthy humans and other animals, but may occur as a reflex in infants, some elderly individuals, and those with neurological injury. It is normal for adult humans to urinate up to seven times during the day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andres Serrano</span> American photographer and artist

Andres Serrano is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His Piss Christ (1987) is an amber-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported to be the artist's own urine. He also created the artwork for the heavy metal band Metallica's Load and Reload albums.

The "NEA Four", Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by John Frohnmayer in June 1990. Grants were overtly vetoed on the basis of subject matter after the artists had successfully passed through a peer review process. John Fleck was vetoed for a performance comedy with a toilet prop. The artists won their case in court in 1993 and were awarded amounts equal to the grant money in question, though the case would make its way to the United States Supreme Court in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, which ruled in favour of the NEA's decision making process. In response, the NEA, under pressure from Congress, stopped funding individual artists.

<i>Piss Christ</i> Controversial photograph by Andres Serrano

Immersion (Piss Christ) is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a small glass tank of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects.

Transgressive art is art that aims to outrage or violate basic morals and sensibilities. The term transgressive was first used in this sense by American filmmaker Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression in 1985. Zedd used it to describe his legacy with underground film-makers like Paul Morrissey, John Waters, and Kenneth Anger, and the relationship they shared with Zedd and his New York City peers in the early 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gavin Turk</span> British artist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piero Manzoni</span> Italian avant-garde artist

Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, better known as Piero Manzoni was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant in the first Arte Povera exhibition held in Genoa, 1967. Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art. His work eschews normal artist's materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur to human excrement in order to "tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values".

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urine</span> Liquid by-product of metabolism in the bodies of many animals, including humans

Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. In placental mammals, urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder and is released from the bladder through the urethra during urination. In other vertebrates, urine is excreted through the cloaca.

<i>Artists Shit</i> 1961 artwork by Piero Manzoni consisting of 90 cans filled with his faeces

Artist's Shit is a 1961 anti-artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each reportedly filled with 30 grams (1.1 oz) of feces, and measuring 4.8 by 6.5 centimetres, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating:

Artist's Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shock art</span> Form of contemporary art

Shock art is contemporary art that incorporates disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience. It is a way to disturb "smug, complacent and hypocritical" people. While the art form's proponents argue that it is "imbedded with social commentary" and critics dismiss it as "cultural pollution", it is an increasingly marketable art, described by one art critic in 2001 as "the safest kind of art that an artist can go into the business of making today". But while shock art may attract curators and make headlines, Reason magazine's 2007 review of The Art Newspaper suggested that traditional art shows continue to have more popular appeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human feces</span> Metabolic waste of the human digestive system

Human feces are the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested or absorbed in the small intestine of humans, but has been further broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. It also contains bacteria and a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and the dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut. It is discharged through the anus during a process called defecation.

<i>Linee</i> 1959 artists book by Piero Manzoni

Linee (lines) is an artist's book by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, created in 1959. Each work consists of a cardboard tube, a scroll of paper with a black line drawn down it, and a simple printed and autographed label. This label contains a brief description of the work, the work's length, the artist's name and the date it was created. Most of the lines were made between September and December 1959. 68 are known to have been made, each with different length strips inside.

<i>Corpo daria</i> Artists multiple by Piero Manzoni

Corpo d'aria is an artist's multiple by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. Manufactured between October 1959 and March 1960, the pieces are a box, a tripod base, a deflated balloon and a mouthpiece. 45 copies were made and sold at 30,000 lire each. Originally, any buyer could ask Manzoni to inflate the balloon himself, but would be charged an extra Deutschmark for every litre of air expanded. When fully expanded, the balloons measured 80 cm in diameter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feces</span> Solid or semisolid remains of undigested food

Feces are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvon Lambert Gallery</span>

Yvon Lambert Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Paris founded by Yvon Lambert in 1966.

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<i>Blood Cross</i> Photograph by Andres Serrano

Blood Cross is one of American photographer Andres Serrano's early religious-themed postmodernist images, released in 1985, two years before the controversial Piss Christ was debuted. This image depicted a plexiglass cross filled with cow's blood; the cross leaked slightly making it appear as though it was bleeding. It was exhibited along with Milk, Blood as part of Serrano's Fluids series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scandals in art</span>

Scandals in art occur when members of the public are shocked or offended by a work of art at the time of its first exhibition or publication,.

References

  1. Jones, Jonathan (14 May 2014). "Blood, semen and tears: why artists are obsessed with using their bodily fluids". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  2. "Using his own blood, New York artist paints "Resurrection" exhibit". Reuters . 5 October 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  3. Wise, Lauren (27 January 2016). "Axe Painted Blood: An Interview with the Artist Who Drew Lucifer in Blood on Gary Holt's Guitar". Vice . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  4. Rigney, Todd (7 September 2015). "The Anguished Man, the World's Most Haunted Painting, Is Not for Sale". Dread Central . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  5. Pelly, Jenn (4 May 2012). "Flaming Lips Blood Vinyl: 10 Copies, $2500, Features Ke$ha, Erykah Badu, Nick Cave, Chris Martin Blood". Pitchfork . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  6. Breiham, Tom (4 May 2012). "Flaming Lips Bloody Vinyl Costs $2,500". Stereogum . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  7. Jones, Jonathan (18 April 2011). "Andres Serrano's Piss Christ is the original shock art". The Guardian . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  8. "Controversial artwork Piss Christ vandalised in France". BBC News . 18 April 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  9. Michelson, Noah (16 September 2017). "The Powerful Reason Why This Artist Has Been Saving His Urine For The Last 200 Days". HuffPost . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  10. "What Is the Most Iconic Artwork of the 21st Century? 14 Art Experts Weigh In". Artnet News . 29 September 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  11. "'Artist's Shit', Piero Manzoni, 1961". Tate . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  12. Embuscado, Rain (2 May 2016). "Survey a Century of Human Waste in Art". Artnet News . Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  13. Fusco, Coco (Fall 1991). "Shooting the Klan: An Interview with Andres Serrano". Community Arts Network. CommunityArtsNetwork. Archived from the original on 19 April 2011.
  14. "International Air Transit Association page on DGR (Dangerous Goods Regulations)". Archived from the original on 5 August 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  15. "Blood Art". Archived from the original on 24 February 2008.