Modern Art and Pee

After a recent trip to MOCA, Crappy Boy and I were talking about art and the odd things that people will buy in the name of art. I mentioned the classic example of Duchamp’s Fountain (a urinal) and how although the original doesn’t even exist, replicas have sold for over a million dollars.

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Mine? Um, I don’t think so. At least, I kinda hope not.

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I’m sure there are at least a handful of people who would buy presidential pee.

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Wait, he’d buy it? Why?

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Well, that makes sense. Put it where it belongs I guess.

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A hundred dollars? Why?

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Okay, that’s weird. He has stepped over the line into creepy fan territory. But at least George Lucas knows he has a customer in case he ever needs quick cash.

Finally, he concluded with:

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Well, at least he’ll have an income source.

 

—————–

I couldn’t find an example of an artist selling his/her own pee or anyone else’s. Therefore, I think we should pursue this concept. Maybe in sealed mason jars? The variety of golden hues would be lovely if we set them up on a rustic windowsill. People will totally go for this because mason jars are cool. Anything looks beautiful in a row of mason jars. Coming to the Crappy Shop soon! (okay, never)

Also, Manzoni sold cans of artist’s shit in the ’60s  so it has sorta been done anyway. More recently, some guy won an art contest by making iron man’s face with his pee

I love it when art has a sense of humor. Or maybe it doesn’t and it is just me laughing at it, not with it. Works either way.

 

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120 Responses to Modern Art and Pee

  1. Hug it! haha! I am imagining it in a ziplock bag (for some reason) and he’s hugging it the way kids hug a cat where there is too much cat above the squeeze.

  2. Yesterday I called my five year-old a “Chatty Cathy” and she called me Johnny Maplepotty. Hmmmm….

  3. 12tequilas says:

    Metallica has created album cover art using cattle semen. Fortunately, when you buy a CD, you don’t get actual bovine bodily fluids, just an ink on paper representation of the resultant artwork.

    • Angela says:

      That sounds like something Spinal Tap would do! LOL

    • Emily says:

      The Metallica album art is an Andre Serrano piece. And I do believe Piss Christ, also by Serrano, would qualify for pee as art 🙂

      • amber says:

        True, as does the Warhol pee paintings – but that is using pee as a medium, not the actual piece. We’re much to lazy to make something out of or with the pee. Our bodies create pee so the pee itself is the art form. Collect it…profits!

        Wow, I’m actually convincing myself that this is a good idea. 😉

        • Cara says:

          What about something like the breast milk necklaces that are getting popular? Use the pee itself to make something solid and not really pee-like, but with pee as the primary material? Like, pee-glazed coasters or something, lol.

          • CharmingCanuck says:

            Yea I was gonna say that. Lol first name that came to mind when I read this was Andre Serrano. We studied him amongst others in history of photography. Also at the maplepotty lol there is a photographer named Robert Mapplethorpe. Google at your own risk. If you do make sure your kids aren’t around, you may see things that can’t be unseen. 😉

          • Amy U says:

            Someone needs to start a group Pinterest pee board.

      • Kristen says:

        Yes, I was going to mention Andres Serrano, too, using pee as a filter in his photography.

        • Amanda O. says:

          I was so excited to finally put my art degree to use and apparently some other art aficionados beat me to the punch. Dang!

    • rockingmama says:

      It’s actually pig blood and the semen of Andres Serrano, an artist, pushed together between plexiglass

    • KiwiBunnz says:

      Kirk also wanted to fill a guitar with his pee, but they couldn’t figure out a way to keep it fresh and not smell (although I thought the fact it would be sealed would help) so he got one with that bright blue liquid in it instead

  4. Alison says:

    hahaha. That’s a good solid (or liquid?) goal he’s got there. When celebs read this and start selling their pee, I hope they keep hydrated and stay away from asparagus.

  5. Roxanne says:

    Sadly, there may already be a market for Crappy Boy’s pee: folks who need to pass drug tests. Assuming he’s not a large consumer of poppy seed bagels.

  6. KyFireWife says:

    Kids are gross. And funny. And pretty awesome. But mostly gross, LOL.

  7. deanna says:

    i saw an episode of taboo a couple nights ago about a man who creates paintings from his own blood.

    art is in the eye (or pee/blood) of the beholder.

  8. Ginger says:

    Maybe Crappy Boy has tapped into something people would want? Those hardcore artsy people could be potential customers lol.

  9. Liz says:

    LOL at buying George Luca’s pee for a hundred dollars. I think my boys would feel the same and maybe even my husband.

  10. Sarah says:

    You could do a whole color mixing series….yellow pee+blue mason jars = green…

  11. jackie says:

    Modern art just confuses me. Why WOULD jars of poop sell for huge amounts of money? It is all marketing and buzz. I bet you *could* sell mason jars of pee for tons of money.

  12. Marcia says:

    Not the same, but close:
    http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/manzoni-artists-shit-t07667
    And still creepy in my opinion.

  13. Marcia says:

    Which you already pointed out and I didn’t read! Distracting child distracted me! Anyway, I like humor in art but bodily fluids could be left out of it.

  14. Daniela says:

    Well, Italian artist Piero Manzoni sold his own poop, and his poop is in many major museums, from MoMA to the Tate! http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80768

  15. MJK says:

    Did some interesting reading on Menstrala, or menstrual art this morning… Have fun if you decide to look that business up.

  16. Tiffany says:

    “Piss Christ” by Andres Serrano is just one example of Modern Arts love of bodily fluids.

    • Dina says:

      Yes, that one certainly causes a stir. Cause a stir, call it art and make a million dollars. There is a formula I think.

  17. glenna davolt says:

    There was the (?) banned art exhibit “Piss Christ” –in which a cross was immersed in urine, presumably the artist’s.
    & recently read where urine was collected from young boys @ a grammer school, for the purpose of boiling eggs in, a delicacy.
    In China –maybe –I forget. Don’t think they got paid for their pee, however they should. 🙂 Maybe crappy boy would like to know about that one?

    • Mandy says:

      Ewwwwww.

    • Claire says:

      The artwork that caused all the hubbub was actually just a *photo* of a crucifix immersed in urine. So some argued that it wasn’t even urine and that the artist faked it to cause commotion, though who knows if he thought it would cause that much commotion.

  18. Dina says:

    Modern art does seem to have an obsession with bodily fluids.

    • Dina says:

      Painting with piss! Close, but still not as good as pee in mason jars. I think you guys are onto something huge.

  19. Trina says:

    OMG, this is so a conversation I could see myself having with my son. Very funny!

  20. Sara says:

    “I love it when art has a sense of humor.” Brilliant, have never thought of it that way.

  21. Mandy says:

    “Hug it!” LMFAO

    • Dina says:

      Amber, you should have your bottom footnotes in HUGE letters so people actually read them because clearly they don’t!

  22. Bree says:

    I have to say, as an art historian/art educator, I love that you are taking your kids to museums and exploring art with them. Also that you are approaching it with a sense of humor so it is accessible to them. Kudos.

  23. I don’t want to know what you put into google to find that artwork. And I definitely don’t want to know what other links came up!

  24. Dan says:

    Why do I feel like there is a starving artist somewhere peeing in a mason jar right at this moment ready to cash in on this?

  25. Raven Edwards says:

    less art, more psychotic fan territory here, but I seem to remember a “Sex in The City” where a vial containing Madonna’s urine sample from an OB/GYN visit was coveted, and there’s always that deeply disturbing ABBA turd in a vial from the movie “Priscilla, Queen Of The Dessert”. Not sure how crappy boy could parlay his turds/bodily fluids into $$$, but I guess I wish him luck trying.

  26. Karen L. says:

    Actually, there’s quite a market for pee and you don’t have to wait till you are famous to sell your own. You just have to not use drugs and sell it to people trying to pass a drug test (or so I’ve been told). I have no plans to go into the business.

  27. Stephanie says:

    Didn’t someone once paint a picture of the Virgin Mary using elephant poo?

    Also, the scene in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” with the ABBA turd: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_HoPPk9r2w (mobile link, sorry…I’m on my tablet.) Ah, souvenirs.

    • Beth says:

      Yes! Chris Ofili! I worked at a museum and was helping to install one of his “elephant dung” paintings. “The Holy Virgin Mary” art was causing controversy in NY at the time, but this was a different work at a different museum. It was so heavy, I was almost crushed by elephant poo!

  28. Just Me says:

    Tell your friend, Mayim. She could help you get a collection of Big Bang Theory ‘art’ for your shop. Tell Crappy Boy I’d bet he’d make more than $100 😉 haha

  29. Leah says:

    It’s important to goal set early in life. Kudos to him!

  30. LRM says:

    Don’t give the Kardashians any ideas…

  31. Erin says:

    Oh. my. goodness. I can’t wait until my 15 month old can come up with stuff like this!

    Thank you so much for your blog! Tell the kids, they’re doing great!

  32. Karen L. says:

    I am also just reminded of the origins of the phrase “piss poor”. People DID used to sell their urine (it was used in the dying process amongst other things). If you did this, you were piss poor. If you couldn’t afford the pot used to collect such liquid, then you were, “so poor you didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

    • Redted says:

      Yes, urine was used in the process of dying yarn blue (using indigo). Indigo (and woad, chemically identical but used mainly in per industrial Europe) was very rare and it was quite hard to achieve the brilliant blue colours required for tapestry. Has anyone read ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ by Tracey Chevalier?

  33. There’s also an “artist” who paints with his penis. You can commission whatever you want. *WHY* you would want to is beyond me, but OK.

  34. Liz says:

    Maybe the sentiment of crappy boy is the type of thing that inspired this Onion article: http://onion.com/121yBMw.

  35. akorn says:

    Well, Warhol did pee on canvases in the 70’s, and those sell as Fine Arts. Not to mention vomit paintings today (sorry to anyone emetophobic), “Artist’s Shit” by Manzoni in 1961, and semen paintings. And there’s, of course, Menstrala. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fluids_in_art

    And, as other’s noted, there is a market for urine to help other’s pass drug tests.

    But I’m sure there’s also a market for celebrity body fluids, if that in and of itself isn’t already a thing. Crappy Boy has probably just stumbled across a gold mine!

  36. Sharon says:

    Thanks to you, he’s kinda getting there. But I’d still stick with the lemonade.

  37. Sarah Almond says:

    Well, people try to buy vials of celebrity sweat, why not celebrity pee? Keep that in mind when Crappy Boy wants to expand his Etsy business. 😉

  38. foxgarden says:

    So speaking of using bodily fluids in art projects, here’s one that I actually thought was kind of cool…

    http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/blood-wars-museum-exhibit-pits-immune-systems-against-each-other-biological-battles

  39. tara says:

    HAHAH how funny!!

    Once a friend of mine painted her butt and gave me a print of her butt. It sounds weird, but it was super hilarious because you could see the hole and everything.

  40. At least he’s got something to work towards! 🙂

  41. Carol says:

    I can totally see the picture of the different yellow in mason jars sitting in a window with lots of sunlight pouring in pinned on Pinterest.

  42. Kami says:

    He could start a good business. He could sell different colored pee. (You know, by eating beets – it’s red, etc. I don’t recommend drinking antifreeze to turn it green, but you get the idea.) A rainbow of urine. LOL!!!!!!!!!

  43. Amy says:

    You do realize, of course, that your customer base would consist entirely of stoners trying to pass drug tests, right?

  44. Hey, I’ve sold several of our old baby/toddler things that most DEFINITELY still had pee in the crevices, doesn’t that count? Oh wait, we’re not famous.

  45. Gabrielle says:

    You’ll have to trademark “turdinado” and work it into your marketing!

  46. Jerry says:

    You do know about Piss Christ, right?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

  47. Now that I know there’s an untapped market for pee in jars, I’m going to start saving all my pee in jars. Just in case.

    “JAR-O-PEE”?

  48. Lauren says:

    Hahaha so funny. I thoroughly enjoyed this post. Your son’s future ambitions are pretty great.

  49. Teresa says:

    Why do I have a $20,000.00 art degree! Why!

  50. Shelly Jasperson says:

    Maybe Howard Hugh’s pee … he kept a lot of it in Mason Jars apparently. Maybe to sell it.

  51. Anne says:

    Thank you for including the link to Wikipedia so I could get educated on Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. 🙂

  52. Ericha says:

    I heard Andres Serrano talk about “Piss Christ” years ago in art school. He made a pretty controversial subject dry and boring. Crappy boy would do a much better job, I’m sure!

    • Stasi says:

      That’s a shame, because it’s one of my all-time favorite works of art. Transcendent beauty!

  53. Nikki says:

    Amber, here in Oz we have a little show called Adam Hills Tonight. The audience members get surveyed before the show and one night they were talking about hoarders. One person’s grandfather had kept a jar of an early Aussie rock star’s wee for 40 years after having to find something for the artist to use quickly backstage…in the ’60s…eeeewwww!

  54. If the day ever arrives that anyone longs to hug my pee, I’ll know I’ve arrived and, that I should probably consider some sort of police protection order.

  55. Kate says:

    I wonder if Elmo’s pee would be red. That’s the only thing my son would be interested in right now.

  56. Miriam says:

    He could maybe open a pee of famous people museum and people would have to pay to hug the pee of the person they admire most.

  57. Fuzzy says:

    Don’t know if you realized, but you turned off comments on the Non-Crappy book giveaway.

  58. Stasi says:

    Well there’s Piss Christ, that had pee in it (but was a photograph of the pee). But yeah, dung has definitely been a more popular medium. I thought I saw the original Fountain in Paris…was I wrong?

    As for Obama, I love how the 5 year old set is enamored of him. My daughter recently saw a flag display for Memorial Day and said, “That must be for the Person of the United States. Obama.”

  59. Aleta says:

    *snort laugh* Great conversation. I can so totally see my husband and our son having this conversation. omg..

  60. Brian E says:

    so hard to comment on the give away post when it says comments are off.

  61. I also tried to comment on the giveaway – but it says comments are off!

  62. Stephanie says:

    Commenting here for the giveaway.

  63. Emily S says:

    This appears to be the place to comment for the giveaway. I would love that book! It looks great!

  64. malibou says:

    Makes me think of the Roald Dahl book My Uncle Oswald. Great read, but not for kids. It details the collecting of famous people’s sperm. LOL

  65. casey says:

    i have a poland spring bottle full of my husband’s pee in my car that he can put in a toilet for me.

  66. Sarah says:

    ‘Just hug it’. Hahaha!

  67. MargieK says:

    I don’t get it. One of the ways to enter your drawing for a copy of “Honest Toddler”‘s book is to leave a comment, but comments are “off” for that post. Trickery? Or did you intend to force us to comment on something else besides that post?

    Well obviously I’m not the only person confounded by that situation!

    Sorry, I don’t have any comments wrt pee (at least not today). Oh wait, yes I do! We recently went kayaking/canoeing/paddleboarding (different people used different watercraft) at a nearby lake with a group that included our 2 1/2 year old grandson). We stopped on shore and took turns trying the different watercraft. Grandson, who is learning to pee in the potty, takes delight in peeing in new locations. The shore wasn’t sandy, more like a combination of muddy clay and rocky, and water next to the shore was cloudy with the chocolatey colored dirt. Grandson had to pee, and there was latrine nearby, but he was able to gleefully declare “I peed in the chocolate!”

    • MargieK says:

      Whoops, meant to say no latrine nearby — not that it matters a lot with little kids that age. Going outside is a thrill at that age. He also peed on the tree in our front yard before we left. 🙂

    • Candace says:

      I think it was just a mistake. Comments are turned on for the giveaway post now.

  68. Ryan Lawler says:

    Pee art! Genius!

  69. wendy says:

    Too cute!

  70. Tehillah says:

    LOL! When I was 5 or 6, I remember my dad (who’s an artist) telling me about modern art and how a guy sold his own pee because he was famous. That got me thinking… but my parents quickly put a stop to any entrepreneurial advances in that direction 😉

  71. Suzaan says:

    Love how kids brains work

  72. I can’t wait til my son is about 4 and I can share this post with him and he’ll be old enough to get it. I’d wager he’d also want a bit of the Lego’s inventor’s pee. And maybe George Lucas’ by then, too.