Wim Delvoye

 

Art


It’s hard to be a provocative artist these days, isn’t it? We had the “Piss Christ” - which, entirely predictably, pissed of fundamentalist Republicans - and we’re getting our daily dose of sex every day, like when our next-door neighbour receives a Victoria’s Secret catalogue in the mail and we can’t refrain from having a brief peek. Enters Belgian artist Wim Delvoye who “invited Belgian friends to paint parts of their bodies with small amounts of barium and then have sex in actual medical clinics.” Oh, the glory of European health care! Wim Delvoye then turned the so-called “sex-rays” (how witty!) into mock church windows - some of which you can see here - and into (sort of) old-fashioned prints - some of which you can see here. Please note that if you’re one of those ultra-fundamentalists the photos are as (s)explicit as it gets - a statement that, I’d like to add, isn’t supposed to say anything about their actual value. I think some of those prints got shown in New York City but, how unfortunate for the artist!, people must have been too obsessed with their “war on terrorism” to get offended. Or maybe next time Wim Delvoye should explore religion coz, you know, photos about sex are so yesterday.