Piss, shit, puss, sperm

In Artaud’s words, living sounds like a fatality. Or should I say human condition sounds like a fatality. Starting a poem with shit is bold… and repulsive. He does not beat around the bush, instead he bluntly states what we are full of, shit.

“There where it smells of shit, it smells of being.” This could indeed seem like a reduction of humanity to a digestive tract but whoever would go against this statement is in denial. There would be nothing more unhuman than not defecating.

But other than going against nature, if someone was to stop excreting the colon would rupture, resulting in a true internal mess.   

And yet, this act, that is something so natural, so primal, and most important viral, is hidden, shamed, denied.

This need to deny and reject something that is ultimately a part of us, that is us, is caused by the dissociation that happens the second something exits our body and lands in the outside world, becoming an undefined abject thing that we can observe from the outside.

Observing, analysing and judging are concepts only engrained and enabled by a human brain full of social constructs. An animal would never look at its feces and then think anything of it or judge itself for doing what is natural for it to do.

As we know, society is based on rules, order and approval of the majority. What Kristeva states perfectly is her essay on abjection “Powers of horror” is that abjection has to do with “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules”

And a part of us, that ends up outside of us is the materialisation of that. We do not want to face with the harsh reality of our humanity.

Not judging our shit, not being disgusted by it would bring us closer to what is animal, primal.

When thinking about the elitist closed circle that represent the art world, it is both funny and ironic to think that pee and poop talk would end being part of its colorful landscape. It is usually considered immature, lacking in depth and often associated with children’s talk.

However, when these kind of subjects land in the hands of artists it is always for cathartic reasons. Both Austrian (male) collective Gelitin and female American artist Kiki Smith approach the theme of shit and piss. Both approach are very different but with the same exact intention: accepting ourselves for what we are (made of), what is part of us, (all of us) and what connects us with our primal instincts.

Kiki Smith’s pieces, Tale and Pee Body both depict naked female bodies in very exposed and vulnerable position. What both of them have in common is the fact that we are looking at them as they are doing something that we usually do in complete intimacy. But the vulnerability of the pieces is an indispensable part; looking at them make us feel shame, ashamed to be looking as the embodiment of shame. Or are we seeing shame because that’s what we would feel if we were to take their place. But whichever it is, it is nonetheless a humbling artwork. Kiki Smith onces explained in an interview that the fecal trail in Tale is also a metaphor for our emotional baggage, that we tend to bottle up and keep in, which is toxic, exactly like keeping actual waste inside, so instead she lets go of it, becoming a release for her as an artist, but also for the viewer.  

With Gelitin on the other hand, bodily fluids are always treated with a humorous and playful approach. They are not simply the repulsing result of a primal human need, instead they become the protagonist of the piece, the thing around which the whole narrative of the piece evolves. Piss becomes like any other material, as much as paint or clay are.

Zapf de pipi is a perfect example  are that, nothing as simple as a black bucket with an hollow bottom, and an outside temperature that would frieze any droplets of water instantly. They created a gigantic 7 meters long stalagmite of pee. A collaborative piece where the pee of over 200 different people joint into a 100% natural sculpture.

What makes these bodily builds amusing instead of repulsing is their decontextualization , they are not hidden and shamed, instead they are blown out of proportions, made giant, (Vorm – Fellows – Attitude) and in a way glorified. Our shit is not the decline of our humanity but instead the thing that brings us all together, the thing that everyone truly does but always hides shamefully.