ILLUSTRATIONS Alonso Feliciano
10. HE GIVES THE BLOOD
CONSTRUCTIONS Blood Piss Blues (2010)
ARTIST Vinicius Quesada
Born in São Paulo, the artist mixes his blood and urine with paint to make collages and paintings. Blood is used in all colors, while urine is used for yellow or greenish tones. One of his last series, calledBlood Piss Blues (“Sangue Xixi Blues”, in Portuguese), attracted the attention of the foreign media. As he does not accept the use of other people’s blood in his works, Quesada spends months without producing new material.
9. WANT TO PLAY IN THE SNOW?
CONSTRUCTIONS Piss Flowers (1991)
ARTIST Helen Chadwick
The work is a set of 12 cast bronze sculptures that resemble flowers. To create them, the British artist urinated in the snow, forming a cavity. Afterwards, her husband urinated in small jets around this hole. The deformations in the snow were cast in cast bronze and resemble flowers: her pee is the stem, his the petals. Romantic, isn’t it?
8. HIT A BALL
CONSTRUCTIONS Bogey Ball (2002)
ARTIST James R. Ford
For two years, between 2002 and 2004, Ford collected mucus from his nose in a container. The result was a 2.1 cm diameter ball made of boogers! According to Ford, the operations of removal, selection and collection of excrement were part of an obsessive and frustrating process, which required a lot of commitment. But, apparently, it paid off: he managed to sell the work for about US$ 20,000
7. PISS ON SCREEN
CONSTRUCTIONS oxidations(1977)
ARTIST Andy Warhol
First, the Plastic Artist painted 12 common canvases with metallic paints made from copper. Afterwards, he was calling his friends to piss on them. Copper reacted with uric acid, producing different shapes and colors. Warhol experimented with different color patterns, varying the pee producers and their diet. Today, a screen costs at least $900,000
6. SHITTING ART
Constructions purple squirt (1995)
ARTIST Keith Boadwee
Adjunct professor at an American college of arts, Boadwee has a somewhat eccentric method of painting: he inserts water-based paint into the anus with the help of a hose and then sprays it all through the sphincter onto a blank canvas. The ink jets form abstract patterns reminiscent of the works of painter Jackson Pollock. Hint: don’t google this guy’s name!
5. CACA CAN
CONSTRUCTIONS artist shit (1961)
ARTIST Piero Manzoni
It took a long time on top of the toilet for Manzoni to accumulate enough feces to fill 90 cans with the material. With that task completed, it was just a matter of labeling it: “Artist shit. Content: 30 g. Produced and canned in May 1961”. In 2007, one of them was sold for 124,000 euros. Detail: the cans are sealed and no one knows if there really is poop inside
4. CLOTHED HEAD
CONSTRUCTIONS self (1991)
ARTIST Marc Quinn
The piece is a faithful and detailed reproduction of the artist’s head, molded with 4.5 liters of his own frozen blood, taken over the course of five months. Quinn decided to create a statue every five years, thus monitoring her physical changes and aging. The National Portrait Gallery, London, acquired a copy ofself for £300,000 to have in your permanent collection
3. CHRIST IN A CUP
CONSTRUCTIONS pisss christ (1987)
ARTIST Andres Serrano
This controversial photo depicts a small plastic crucifix immersed in a glass filled with the urine of Serrano, an American photographer. The piece won a contemporary art competition in the US sponsored with public money. Since then, exhibitions of the work have collected protests and vandalism attacks – Serrano even received death threats
2. COCÔ VENUS
CONSTRUCTIONS Milo’s Venus, Copy Made with Excrement (2010)
ARTIST Zhu Cheng
One of China’s most famous sculptors, Cheng, along with nine of his art students, created a replica of the Venus de Milo made from panda droppings. The reproduction of the work of ancient Greece had to be placed inside a transparent box to contain the strong smell that emanates. It was bought by a Swiss collector for over $45,000
1. HUMAN MEATBALLS
CONSTRUCTIONS Polpette al Grasso di Marco (2006)
ARTIST Marco Evaristti
The Danish artist, born in Chile, had already created controversy when he made an exhibition in which goldfish swam inside blenders – which could be turned on by the public. As for this wonder, Evaristti produced 48 meatballs with the fat removed from himself through a liposuction operation. Some were cooked by the artist himself and served at a dinner party for friends completely unaware that they were eating part of the host’s body. Others were placed in packs of ten and sold for $4,000. According to the artist’s website, the work «criticizes today’s consumerist culture». Wassup, did you want to put it on the noodles?
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SOURCES BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New York Times, The Partial Observer, American Repertory Theater and magazine wired