Body Fluid - Body Fluids in Art

Body Fluids in Art

A relatively new trend in contemporary art is to use body fluids in art, though there have been rarer uses of blood (and perhaps feces) for quite some time, and Marcel Duchamp used semen decades ago. Examples include:

• The controversial Piss Christ (1987), by Andres Serrano, which is a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine;
• Andy Warhol's Oxidations series, begun in 1977, in which he invited friends to urinate onto a canvas of metallic copper pigments, so that the uric acid would oxidize into abstract patterns;
• Self (1991, recast 1996) by Marc Quinn, a frozen cast of the artist's head made entirely of his own blood;
• Piss Flowers, by Helen Chadwick (1991-92), are twelve white-enameled bronzes cast from cavities made by urinating in snow (though this might not be characterized as the use of bodily fluids in art, just their use in preparation);
• performances by Lennie Lee involving feces, blood, vomit from 1990
• many paintings by Chris Ofili, which make use of elephant dung (from 1992).
• Gilbert and George's The Naked Shit Pictures (1995)
• Hermann Nitsch and Das Orgien Mysterien Theatre use urine, feces, blood and more in their ritual performances.
• Franko B from 1990 blood letting performances.
• The cover of the Metallica's album Load is an original artwork entitled "Semen and Blood III", one of three photographic studies by Andres Serrano created in 1990 by mingling the artist's own semen and bovine blood between two sheets of Plexiglas.