Following last month’s wildly successful crowdfunding campaign ‘Piscio d’Artista’, Gavin Turk is now inviting you to a pop-up exhibition in the heart of Soho, London’s Westend to experience the Artist’s Piss in real life. In this time of climate and ecological emergency what desirable new product could inspire intelligent and idealistic early adopters to queue round the block?
In a nod to Piero Manzoni’s Merde D’Artiste and Warhol’s Campbell Soup, the art provocateur, Gavin Turk has created the perfect product to express the complexity of our contemporary jeopardy. Over the last month, The Artist has been canning his own urine in a modified canning factory at his studio in Canning Town, East London. Through this act, the artist has created a minimal impact artwork for a profligate society that has everything the heart could desire.
The body waste has been put through the recycling of art history, canned in a limited edition super shiny recycled aluminium can with the title of the work Artist’s Piss translated into 30 languages. Set against the backdrop of a culture that consumes more than 2 billion sweet fizzy canned drinks per day, the reflective surface of this work and its contents asks us to think about what we value.
The first hundred lucky collectors will experience this complex idea at the exhibition, meet the artist and his team, view the now published work and have a chance to purchase an undrinkable souvenir of this historic art happening.
This limited art edition of ‘Artist’s Piss’ continues in the lineage of Gavin Turk elegant paradigm-shifting comments on value and waste. With a provocative invitation to desire our own waste products, and elevate our disgust to a fascination with value, this iconic relic will adorn contemporary mantlepieces for years to come.
The work will only be on show for a brief glimpse of time. So, in the second winter of our global pandemic, you are invited to venture to the bright lights of Soho to pick up one of these classic collectables just in time for Christmas.
Additional Event (10th December – 6pm – LIVE STREAM TALK)
On Friday evening Kate Bryan and Viktor Wynd will be in conversation with Gavin Turk about his newest artwork provocation, canning and selling his own piss. The talk will look at the contemporary paradoxes of value, recycling, waste, consumption and commodities through the lens of art and anthropology.