Forget Banksy! The title of World's Most Badass Artist belongs to a Belgian conceptual artist named Wim Delvoye.
Wim's quite famous for his unconventional art, many of which seem innocuous at a glance but contains something unexpected upon closer inspection. Others, like Cloaca and the gothic heavy machinery laser-cut sculptures shown below are amazing technical tour-de-force pieces.
Whether these art shock you or whether you think that these are art to begin with, there's no denying that Wim's work are quite unique!
Here are some of the most intriguing art of Wim Delvoye:
Cloaca, the Poo Machine
Cloaca is probably Wim Delvoye's most famous art installation. In 2000, he put together a complex machinery at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium. The machine's sole job is to simulate "digestion" and produce poo. Yep, you read that right.
Wim's Cloaca machine (cloaca is a zoological term for the posterior opening of animals) was fed meals twice a day. Then, viewers can follow the food as it makes its way through a series of glass containers (in the original set up as shown above), which represent the various stages of digestion. At the end of the tract, the machine produces feces, which are then vacuum-packed and sold in translucent boxes:
Cloaca has its own website, where you can find out more about the art project: Link | More on Cloaca at Wim's website (don't miss the Super Cloaca!)
Mosaic
Continuing in his obsession with poo, here are Wim's 1990 art exhibit, titled Mosaic. The artwork consists of the complex arrangement of printed ceramic tiles into symmetrical and very ornate patterns.
Only after a closer inspection would the viewers realize that on each tile are two images of the Wim's own turd!
Marble Floors
Again with the what-is-it-really-made-from angle, here's Wim's artwork Marble Floors at the Olga Korper Gallery. If you look closely, the floor is made with ... salami slices! (Actually, just printed pictures of salami - it'll be gross in just a few days if he had made it from real sliced meats)
Links: Olga Korper Gallery [Flash, click on delvoye] | More pics on Wim's own website (under "Marble Floors")
Anal Kisses
Here's a classic Wim art piece: with just a lipstick and a bunch of hotel stationery, Wim could probably fill an art and/or psychology student's master thesis with crazy thinking about Freud, his mother, and other mumbo jumbo. Why? Well, suffice it to say that those, erhm, aren't his lip prints ...
Gothic Laser-Cut Heavy Machinery Sculptures
Photo: David Edgar [wikipedia]
Photo: yw_krcf [Flickr]
Now this is awesome: a series of gothic "lace" sculpture of heavy machineries, done with laser-cut COR-TEN (or weathering) steel.
Tattooed Pigs
Photo: If It's Hip, It's Here
Wim is a vegetarian, but he has a pig/art farm outside of Beijing in China. He's not thinking of bacon, however - Wim has other plans for his swine: he tattoos them! (He said that the pigs have better, longer lives than those raised for food).
Here's the YouTube clip of Wim tattooing pigs:
Some of his most famous tattooed pigs:
That's Louis, the pig tattooed with ... you guessed it, Louis Vuitton logos!
"Sebastien" (2006): Tattooed pig skin by Wim Delvoye
Photo: If It's Hip, It's Here
About the only fascinating exhibit in the whole bunch is the heavy machinery. Trying to explain everything else to my just-shy-of-6-year-old-son who is sitting on my lap...um...took a lot of creativity for such an early hour.
--TwoDragons
Those poor creatures. ANd he calls himself a vegetarian--I assume animal rights are meant to be important to him, but he's not respecting the pigs. Tattooing is painful and possibly causes health problems.
As for his shit-obsession...yeah, he's stuck in stage 1 or 2, isn't he? Grow up, asshole.
The only source I can find listing Cheto Castellano lists him as working under Delvoye with two other artists...can you send me a link where I can read about Castellano's work? I'm interested to read more...thanks!
Because he's taking the limits and, quite literally, shitting all over them. Not only is he making art out of shit, he's making art out of shit that comes out of a simulated digestive system, which takes guts and brains.
And I question why he would call himself a vegetarian and then cause suffering to pigs by tattooing them. Ouch.
The Gothic laser-cut heavy machinery sculptures are about the only thing that's neat here. The rest of it I could do myself... if I was obsessed with crap and had questionable morals and a huge ego.
And then there's the cool church-windows made by xrays of people!
I love this guy!
Personally, I have to share others' distaste for this kind of conceptual art. Not because of a particular aversion to feces or because necessarily even because of the Freudian implications. It just.... gosh, guys, we get it, alright? Modern art is a farce. Duly noted, now pull up your pants please. Now can someone kindly do something worth making?
I'm reminded of a quote by an old art teacher of mine. He was talking about vomiting, but it applies equally to defecation:
"Vomiting is one of the lowest forms of creation in everyday life. You ARE creating something, but nobody wants it."
About the shit machine, as he said pretty clearly, it's about creating something overly complex and totally useless while proving that was the actual intent. And then actually giving value to the shit and selling it in vacuum pack. Something you would have a hard time doing with your own shit. The conceptual idea of a "shit machine" that produces a sellable product is actually a valid comment about current society - think of all the useless crap that gets produced and sold and disposed of everyday.
And the salami floor, well that's just pure genius!
Always good to see irrational behavior justified using logical fallacies.
http://podcastle.org/2008/07/15/pc016-magnificent-pigs/
Actually, thanks for reminding me.
Mind you, I guess maybe the stark contrast between appreciation and vitriol displayed in peoples' reactions is what makes it great art. Maybe indifference is the contrast.
A friend of a friend used to keep a record of every girl he slept with by taking an imprint of their anuses. He used paper napkins and India ink and collated them in ring binders. He called it his collection of "miffy squeaks". Not sure whether he gathered their permission first or not. Maybe that distinction is where the art lies.
This is the reason I do not frequent art houses or museums or callaborate with these pretentious butt heads.
I know I'm a know-it-all, but am I really insufferable? I didn't know that...
The lipstick was even worse! Neatorama, please don't post this kind of...crap.
To Moodindigo: "creepy" does not begin to describe that "friend of a friend". There's a reason some people are classified as mentally disturbed.
There were people who didn't like Picasso's art, that doesn't mean there was any validation in their critiquing it. I'm not saying he is a modern Picasso by any stretch of the imagination. But I am saying that if you don't like something, you don't need to sit there and waste your breath bitching about it. Instead, go find something you like instead.
Thanks for this post Neatorama.
I personally think he should have used REAL salami on the floor, because I think using images of it is a cop-out, but that's my only critique.
and justifying it because it's better
than being raised for food
is assholery.
his being a vegetarian
only begins to compensate
but it'd be better
if he respected animals
and tattooed himself
and others who can agree to it.
www.myspace.com/chetocastellano,
or google him.
you will see from his posted photos that he actually came up with a project to tattoo people, buying their skins through contract way before wim's new project of "tattooing" a human skin..you will also notice that castellano is not only a tattoo artist, but a contemporary artist...
cheto stopped working on the art farm with the pigs because the pigs ended up being just one more collectible piece instead of being saved from the slaughterhouse as delvoye always claims in his interviews.
the most beautiful pigs were done by cheto...wim knows that, anyone who looks at his portfolio will know that.
kayla, great art requires hours to complete and what you call talent, you say?
not since the beginning of the 20th century, i'm afraid!
Nowadays, art is more than pretty landscapes and portrait (in case you didn't realize already) and no, not every idiot on the street can become an "artist".
That's why a drunken hobo pissing in a street corner isn't an artist, but Warhol's piss art(a series of "paintings" if you want to put it that way in which he had handsome young men urinate on canvases, or in the case of the Oxidation series, specially prepared metal plates) is actually art.
There's a few things at work there called intent and poetry. something devoyed of meaning isn't art. And if something is pretty, or took a long time or much talent to make, it doesn't mean it's art.
A painting by numbers of a cat playing with a pink yarn ball could be considered art. but you won't see this in any museum, because it's almost meaningless. it's just meant to be nice to look at.
And why do you think shit isn't a good way to make a statement? oil paints are better, you think? Colored pigment particles in suspension in oil and in a binder. Great for putting color and texture, there's no doubt about it. But feces add another dimension to a work of art. An artist that work with his own feces is creating a work of art with something his body has rejected after absorbing everything it needed to live. it's much more poetic!
And you guys must admit that it made you all react. it made you think. most of you didn't think much farther than the first thing that crossed your mind, though, which is rather unfortunate. to those who took time to try to understand what the artist meant, thank you! you're not the ones polluting the comment section with close-minded reactions.
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now, about those poor little piggies that mean ol' wim tattooed. So what? why do most of you get all pissy about that? he's not mauling them, he's not killing them, and when you see how thick pig skin is, i'd be ready to bet that it's nothing more than a slightly annoying sensation for them to get tattooed. Farmers tattoo and brand their animals all the time, get over it!
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Ruby: I understand you perfectly, as I also do photography, painting and graphism a lot. But unlike you, I know why this guy got featured on neatorama.
Because he's smart enough to stand out of the crowd, to make people talk (as a proof, look at the reaction of the neatorama readers. I don't see much indifference here!) However, the world is full of pretty pictures. people are used to that kind of art. if you don't make them think, if you don't make them react, if you don't innovate, you'll never become anything more than a part of a crowd of artists who still have old-fashioned values.
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As for the fact of him being the most badass artist, now that's something people are right to comment against!
many many many artists died for their art.
An artist who's name I can't remember starved himself to the edge of death for the sake of art and took pictures of the process. One of them I'll always remember is him, reduced to skin and bones, smeared with his own feces (yeah, I know, It's getting redundant) and his skin, now flaccid because of the massive weight loss, pulled away from his bones by hooks piercing it. A haunting picture to say the least.
Delvoye, however, is very interesting, but not such a badass if I may say.
Here comes a sycophantic applause: Nice!
Kayla: People like yourself make memories of 1st year Art school come crashing back to the surface ... Although I agree, any artist worth their salt should refine their "old-fashioned" skills to a point of excellence (up through high school)... but there usually comes a point after studying Art History, where one has an awakening. Duchamp was not only one of the true progenitors of this evolution, probably the greatest given the context. Andy of course, but in modern times, guys like Koons, Hirst, Friedman and Delvoye are pushing the envelope further ... I would argue not nearly as much or as far as some of the "greats" from the past ... but it's a push. I was actually getting a real giggle out of all the reactionary comments here ... if that was your intent, then kudos, otherwise it could be a case of an ostrich with it's head in the sand, argument would be pointless. Personally, I don't think this guy is a bad ass at all ... artist or otherwise.
I said most of the time, because Wim is one artist who really gets my respect. Okay, so he works with feces - so what? At least he's being himself, and he makes peope think twice. It's not just the poo though, it goes much further than that.
People here who only consider a "pretty" picture art, well let me say that you are short minded ( a typical american way of thinking i should say - not disciminating here but it's just the way I feel after reading the comments) I don't blame you, it's what history and the government put in our minds. Most people only think of art as a pretty painting, or maybe (if we're lucky) a sculpture. But that's where it mostly ends and after art school and other experiences i'm really fed up with that additude.
If art needs to be beautiful to look at, and only that, what's the use of calling it art? Everybody can copy a scenery, a cute little animal or a anne geddes baby nowadays. And don't give me that "you need to have talent" shit. Ok, some people are more talented than others to draw, but really It's not hard: you can be a painter yourself and paint by numbers, or you can take a piece of paper and just put it over the original and draw it over. So yes, in fact everybody can be a so-called artist. It's not hard at all to make a beautiful picture.
What's harder is to make it interesting: to put something in the work that makes it special, that makes people look twice or at least think about it.
And to all of you who have comment on the pigs: i really cannot see a problem with it. They are not trated bad, the tattooing was under narcose so they didn't have any pain at all, and it's not that they have any problems with being tattood themselves. Nothing harmful was done to their skin itself- like someone commented: farmers burn their animas all the time, so what is worse?
Art is a difficult something to discuss, and always will be. But please try to think about what you see, and stop being short minded. And If you choose to go for the last option: go back to your celebrities or whatever, where you don't have to think at all.