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]
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. [16]
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. [17]
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. [18]
Urination is the release of urine from the bladder to the outside of the body. Urine is released through the urethra and exits the penis or vulva through the urinary meatus in placental mammals, but is released 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 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.
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.
Wayne Michael Coyne is an American musician. He is the founder, lead vocalist, main songwriter, and only constant member of the psychedelic rock band the Flaming Lips.
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 cause a reaction from the observer. 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.
Gavin Turk is a British artist from Guildford in Surrey, and was considered to be one of the Young British Artists. Turk's oeuvre deals with issues of authenticity and identity, engaged with modernist and avant-garde debates surrounding the 'myth' of the artist and the 'authorship' of a work of art.
Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo 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".
The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is a multimedia contemporary art gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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 exits the urethra through the penis or vulva during urination. In other vertebrates, urine is excreted through the cloaca.
The Museo Poldi Pezzoli is an art museum in Milan, Italy. It is located near the Teatro alla Scala, on Via Manzoni 12.
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
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.
Yvon Lambert Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Paris founded by Yvon Lambert in 1966.
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends is the first album in the "Fwends" series by the American rock band the Flaming Lips in collaboration with a variety of guests.
Stux Gallery is a contemporary fine art dealership located in Manhattan, New York City. Artists represented/exhibited by the gallery have included Doug and Mike Starn, Vik Muniz, Andres Serrano, Dennis Oppenheim, Elaine Sturtevant, Inka Essenhigh, and Orlan.
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.
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,.
Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld is a German artist.