As hinted in Into Me / Out of Me (Part 1), the KW exhibition has absolutely no qualm at showing the crudest aspects of mankind.

The display of artistic vomit, shit, piss and other body fluids had a few good surprises in store though. Mike Parr’s “The Emetics [Primary Vomit] I am Sick of Art [Red, Yellow and Blue] photographs documents the 1977 performance for which the artist was throwing up primary color dyes one after the other in a pristine white gallery.

Semen was present through the video of Vito Acconci’s 1972 performance, “Seedbed,� in which the artist masturbated under the raised floorboards of a gallery. He would stay there three days every week, for a period of 8 hours, masturbating and speaking through a microphone to visitors as if they were lovers. The video is in fact pretty unspectacular, but i guess the work is a milestone in performance art. Acconci now dedicates his time and talent to architecture.

Urine is represented by one of Andy Warhol’s elegant Oxidation paintings (1978) and faeces are present through several pieces, most notably by Mike Kelley’s 1990 Nostalgic Depiction of the Innocence of Childhood and by Piero Manzoni’s iconic Merda Artista (Artist’s Shit.) In 1961, the artist collected his own feces in 90 numbered cans, which contain 30 grams of feces each. He labelled them as ‘100% pure artist’s shit’ in Italian, English, French, and German. Their price depend on the current market value of gold. Some of the cans have exploded or leaked. If you’ve got interest in the subject, you might want to have a look at History of Shit by Dominique Laporte.

Oh! Did i mention that most of these art works were displayed in the rooms devoted to eating? The selection did indeed showcase everything but the pleasures of gastronomy. Mona Hatoum‘s Deep Throat, for example, is a table set with a plate whose bottom is cut out to expose a video screen playing a medical video in which a miniature camera lens travels down the artist’s digestive system. Yummy!

Elsewhere in the exhibition you had to face pregnancy, tears, screams, sickness and breathless kisses. Among all this display of shock and awe, there was one work i found particularly painful to watch: Hannah Wilke‘s Intra Venus, a series of photographs that chronicle the effects of chemotherapy therapy on her body. She died of cancer in 1993.

“Carnal artist” Orlan couldn’t be absent from the panorama. Although i’ve never managed to watch any of her video from the intro till the end she’s probably one of the artists i admire most. In her video Operation Reussie (Successful Operation, 1994) she undergoes surgeries as a sign of protest of cosmetic surgery itself and the diktat of beauty. The performance was broadcast live and Orlan, dressed as if she were going to a party, stayed awake to explain her project and answer questions from the public. In this work, Orlan questions the status of the body in our society and for future generations via genetic manipulations. She sees the body as a site of public debate that poses critical questions for our time.

Two other works that are definitely worth a mention are Alfredo Jaar’s poster filled up with the word “Rwanda” and a mesmerizing video Patriot Act (Xanadu: A Place Where Dreams Come True) by Robert Boyd, a collage of archive video showing iconic leaders since World War II. Parades, victory celebrations, adoring crowds rapidly give way to images of war and massacres leading to the video’s cataclysmic end. Ultimately, Patriot Act is about the men who lead and the people who adore them without question, without fail, time and again through out the course of history..

A third post about the exhibition is in the pipeline. It will focus on the “sex” rooms, I’m still wondering how much i liked the exhibition. Fellow visitors certainly didn’t seem to have a merry time, their faces looked extremely tense and i never catched any smile. There’s one thing i know though: none of the works on show was as disturbing as going back from the gallery, opening my laptop and reading how many people had downloaded the video of Saddam being hanged. Now that’s something i’ll never be able to watch.

Found a video of the exhibition.