"Body Flush" by Virginie Sommet

Virginie Sommet 

Fountain Art Fair 

Art Basel week in Miami, December 2012

     Emanating the contradictory evolution of art, the Fountain Art Fair had a multitude of work covering the walls of its spacious warehouse. The group show presented by Creamhotel from New York featured a controversial installation by a French artist named Virginie Sommet, entitled Body Flush (2009). At first glance, these tiny material forms encased in colorful boxes appear to be harmless; perhaps small portions of tree roots or another organic substance found in nature. What the installation holds within is indeed natural, but in actuality, it is something quite grotesque.

    The artist had three colonics performed by a specialist in one week to obtain six pounds of her own differents layers of undigested food stuck in her colon by fears and stress during many years,  which she then dried and contained inside the small plexiglass cases. Sommet followed the instructions in Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care and ate no solid food for a week, but drank only olive oil and apple vinegar to retrieve the medium for this piece. 

    This work is the epitome of anti-art. Art has no boundaries in the 21^st century but collectively, it aims to be a vehicle of freedom of creative expression. Flushing the body in this case was a way for the artist to rid herself of traumas and fears that had materialized within her intestines. Several strong commentaries are present, as this artist is utilizing the concept of the ready-made by preserving her undigested food as fine art.

     Displaying the most unconventional medium one might ever expect, Sommet has done what the Fountain exhibit does best every year. On the statement next to her installation, she had written an explanation that read, “The colonic is a way to touch our inner self, our deepest self. The colonic gives a possibility to change our self organically and physically.” It can be derived that the artist is sharing her deepest sense of her physical self in Body Flush. In an innovative approach to once again challenge what is acceptable in the art world, she has devised a new interpretation of the artistic medium to symbolize freedom of the inner self and communicate a message of mental freedom and spiritual enlightenment.

(inspiration)

from the First German Dada Manifesto of 1918:

"Art in its execution and direction is dependent on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be that which in its conscious content presents the thousandfold problems of the day, the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week... The best and most extraordinary artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the intelligence of their time."

                                                        —Richard Huelsenbeck (b. 1892 – 1974 d.)

Cut with a Kitchen Knife, by Hannah Höch

Fountain Reflections: Part I

My Fountain embroidery; it reminds me of the Chinese New Year.

My Fountain article on Artmiami.tv:

http://artmiami.tv/articles-2/preview-fountain-miami/

The following paragraph is from Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present by Roselee Goldberg, published in 1978.

The Art of Ideas

"The year 1968 prematurely marked the beginning of the decade of the seventies. In that year political events severely unsettled cultural and social life throughout Europe and the U.S. The mood was one of irritation and anger with prevailing values and structures. Students and workers shouted slogans and erected street barricades in protest against 'the establishment'. Many younger artists approached the institution of art with equal, if less violent, disdain. They questioned and accepted premises of art and attempted to re-define its meaning and function. Moreover, artists took it upon themselves to express these new directions in lengthy texts, rather than leave that responsibility to the mediator, the art critic. The gallery was attacked as an institution of commercialism and other outlets sought for communicating ideas to the public. On a personal level, it was a time when each artist re-evaluated his or her own intentions for making art, and when each action was to be seen as part of an overall investigation of art processes and not, paradoxically, as an appeal for popular acceptance." 

DADA

Emmy Hennings with her angry puppet, Zurich, 1917.