Body Fluids in Art
... Why do artists choose body fluid as their medium when there are so many other options? ... Now, in an age of technology, science, medical know-how and power, even the lay person knows that the bygone myths about the body are untrue. ... Some believe the body should be left as nature intended, others fight for rights of ownership regarding their physicality. But amidst these changes and possibilities regarding the human body, it seems there will be little left of what we began with if the current rate of tampering continues. In the past body and self have been inextricably linked, but modern technology and fashion trends are unravelling us. The use of body fluid in art is more than a comment on our bodies as mechanisms that produce, pump and excrete. ... Perhaps, in our contemporary world of flux, where the human body is so easily morphed, reproduced (i. ... As did Shigeko Kubota when she dripped red paint from her crotch, establishing her female presence in the male dominated art world. ... As Steve Tomasula states, “works of body art are of and about flesh and sperm and blood and saliva. ... Artists who’ve used body fluid in their art (or been inspired by it) have tapped into the social understanding of what is deemed unmentionable (and yet so common place that, out of the artistic context, it’s barely noticeable). ... Although not using body fluid, the concept of us being at the mercy of our own biology is clearly reinforced by this kind of blatant imagery. ... Hopkins# argues that the use of body fluids does make a point, that of the body is a productive organ, and these works celebrate the generative process. ... But in the current climate of body related issues, it makes sense that artists have used these stimuli and materials, a point reinforced by Tomasula’s comment, “Against this backdrop we conduct our affairs, we marry, we make love, we procreate, and we fight in court over whether or not genes can be patented and, if so, by whom--the person from whom they were taken or the pharmaceutical company that duplicates them? And, of course, amid all of this we make art”. An exhibition was recently devoted to this theme in art.