WIM DELVOYE
"Don’t fight popular culture; instead grab and chew it," says Wim Delvoye. According to the 1965-born Belgian artist, art is one of the ways to chew the global system in which we struggle. He sometimes takes inspiration from computer games, sometimes he transforms Rorschach's ink blots into glossy bronze idols or cement trucks into neo-gothic cathedrals, and sometimes he turns gas cylinders or suitcases into decorative ceramic patterns. In addition to challenging our aesthetic perception by pushing the boundaries, he makes fun of etiquette, traditions, stereotypical cultural and religious symbols, arouses curiosity but somehow manages to entertain with his cynical, subversive and ironic language. In doing so, he combines high technology with a rich craft, allowing for radical transitions between materials and ideas.
"A work of art is interesting only if it disturbs the viewer."
Delvoye believes that art cannot change an individual's life; for him, only life itself can lead to the transformation of art. In the process, the artist, who resembles artists such as Andy Warhol, Banksy, Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Andres Serrano and Joseph Beuys in various ways and establishes subtle connections with some of their works, aims to confront the viewer with the world we live in through shock, humiliation and provocation. His works are like playful mirrors that enable this confrontation. In this context, “Cloaca”, a machine that imitates the body's digestive system down to the excretion process and produces feces with a seriousness reminiscent of scientists' laboratory experiments, can be considered among his most important works in which he challenges the perception of high art. As a result of popular culture, consumer society and mass production, isn't the material that is rapidly embodied, processed and excreted objects, culture, knowledge and art itself? Another sensational work of the artist, which was met with great reaction especially by animal rights activists, was his 'live canvases', in which he started by tattooing the skins of dead pigs and continued with live pigs. The artist, who started a pig farm in China, 'decorates' the animals with various images such as Walt Disney characters, Louis Vuitton patterns or Russian prison tattoos. Also applying these tattoos on humans, Delvoye takes pleasure in transforming habits, objects or ideas that belong to the subculture into objects of prestige. His focus is on the representation of aesthetic contrasts, and the contradictions created by these contrasts are often quite provocative.
From Cold Salamis to Cold Marbles
In 1999, Delvoye made ornamental motifs from high-quality meat products such as ham slices, salami and mortadella, which he would later photograph and print in large format. The more organic, subject to decay and changeable the meat, the more durable, timeless and magnificent the marble floor. These marble floors thus became a series of photographs of meticulously cut delicatessen products arranged in geometric patterns based on Italian Baroque and Islamic motifs. With a perfect aesthetic arrangement and rhythmic harmony, the various kinds of meats placed on the floor reflect dichotomies such as organic-inorganic, sacred and profane, laying the source of sustenance at our feet and leaving it at a point somewhere between appetizing and disturbing as soon as we approach and realize what we are looking at. The artist, who reminds us at every opportunity of his interest in all kinds of living and non-living bodies, skins and materials and that there are no limits to ornamentation, manages to create a surprising visuality by playing with our instincts.
X-Ray Porns: Contemporary Vanitas
"I only believe in what I can see. In my universe there is no soul and there is no love. I've never seen the soul and I've never seen love. I've seen skeletons, teeth, penises, lungs with X-rays. I've never seen love." Delvoye's pornographic X-rays include thousands of frames of various people's skeletons, spinal cords, teeth, skulls, teeth, buttocks, oral sex moments, hand gestures. In this series, in which we find ourselves confronted with forms that are part skeleton, part ghost, the X-rays do not reveal what is hidden, but rather show the relationship between sex and death, turning these works into Vanitas full of irony. In 2016, Delvoye placed these images inside gigantic stained-glass windows. Instead of saints or characters from biblical stories, skeletons in passionate embraces, hugs and kisses between the window panels become anatomical decorations in a space where death is sacred, replacing religious transcendence with physical passion. This symbolism, which is used on the axis of life, pleasure and death, turns into a controversial proposition as the artist again combines - even deconstructs - the body and the sacred art of ornamentation.
Stable Symmetries and Rotating Ascenders
Developed by psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach, the "Rorschach Test" consists of a series of symmetrically shaped plates. One of the most well-known personality tests, the interpretation of which is left to the practitioner, Rorschach is a popular practice featured also in many Hollywood movies. Delvoye takes this visuality, which has inspired many artists throughout history, through sculpture and is often used to radically transform and mobilize a 19th century sculpture. Creating stable and rhythmic masses, the artist also reinterprets the tradition of high contrapost sculptures showing the body in an S-shape through figures and objects in the “Twisted Works” series. Twisting and bending the figures so that they appear to move between two or three dimensions, the artist expects the viewer to walk around the sculptures, to use their own body in order to understand them. As if caught in a hurricane or a tornado, the figures that rise upwards as if they will become independent from thee rigid, static bases and take to the air, transform the viewer's body by directing it towards them in a vortex.
SUPPO: Sharp, Moving and Gothic
Another group of Delvoye's best-known works is the Gothic style, in which he takes ordinary, everyday objects and plays with their design. Influenced by this complex and refined style, the decorative objects that emerge are a cross between monumentality and a passion for exploring the artistic styles of the past. While interpreting the mysterious, eerie, complex structure of the Middle Ages, emphasizing divinity with its soaring verticals, he also creates a new form of architecture with contemporary themes and industrial techniques. His 2012 laser-cut sculpture “Suppo” is one of the most important works in which the gothic style appears together with movement and his rotating sculptures. This work, which is also exhibited inside the Louvre Museum's famous pyramid, designed like a needle with sharp edges at both ends and a cyclical movement like a stylish rocket that will rise towards the sky, has skillfully brought together different styles and periods by adding another layer to the contrasting architecture of the pyramid and the Louvre building. Inspired by the architecture of the Cologne Cathedral, this structure gains a new context in every new space/context it enters or stands outside, combining the rigidity of the pre-modern with the fluidity of the post-modern with masterful craftsmanship using symbols of the high culture.
Head to the Sky as You Pour Concrete on the Ground: "Everyday reality rises and becomes heroic."
In “Concrete Mixer”, where Delvoye again transfers the gothic style to an ordinary construction vehicle, he smartly combines the spirit of the period, global contrasts, urban realities and the metaphor of earth and sky. At first glance, this vehicle, which again creates a divine connotation, completely loses its essence as a concrete mixer and becomes hybridized. This vehicle, which in our daily lives is terrifying as it approaches us with its rotating body, reminds us of the evil spirit of the construction industry that destroys everything in its path and at the same time, it searches for new meanings with its transformation into such an aesthetic and sacred form. Reflecting the weaknesses of the consumer and luxury society while kneading the mortar of the buildings to be stepped on and inhabited, the vehicle reflects a brand- new era in the sanctity of the construction industry, looking up to the sky, becoming divinized, rising vertically just like the skyscrapers surrounding it. In this respect, the gothic concrete mixer becomes an important symbol of Delvoye's clever use of various dualities to reflect the rise of everyday reality.
"Don’t fight popular culture; instead grab and chew it," says Wim Delvoye. According to the 1965-born Belgian artist, art is one of the ways to chew the global system in which we struggle. He sometimes takes inspiration from computer games, sometimes he transforms Rorschach's ink blots into glossy bronze idols or cement trucks into neo-gothic cathedrals, and sometimes he turns gas cylinders or suitcases into decorative ceramic patterns. In addition to challenging our aesthetic perception by pushing the boundaries, he makes fun of etiquette, traditions, stereotypical cultural and religious symbols, arouses curiosity but somehow manages to entertain with his cynical, subversive and ironic language. In doing so, he combines high technology with a rich craft, allowing for radical transitions between materials and ideas.
"A work of art is interesting only if it disturbs the viewer."
Delvoye believes that art cannot change an individual's life; for him, only life itself can lead to the transformation of art. In the process, the artist, who resembles artists such as Andy Warhol, Banksy, Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Andres Serrano and Joseph Beuys in various ways and establishes subtle connections with some of their works, aims to confront the viewer with the world we live in through shock, humiliation and provocation. His works are like playful mirrors that enable this confrontation. In this context, “Cloaca”, a machine that imitates the body's digestive system down to the excretion process and produces feces with a seriousness reminiscent of scientists' laboratory experiments, can be considered among his most important works in which he challenges the perception of high art. As a result of popular culture, consumer society and mass production, isn't the material that is rapidly embodied, processed and excreted objects, culture, knowledge and art itself? Another sensational work of the artist, which was met with great reaction especially by animal rights activists, was his 'live canvases', in which he started by tattooing the skins of dead pigs and continued with live pigs. The artist, who started a pig farm in China, 'decorates' the animals with various images such as Walt Disney characters, Louis Vuitton patterns or Russian prison tattoos. Also applying these tattoos on humans, Delvoye takes pleasure in transforming habits, objects or ideas that belong to the subculture into objects of prestige. His focus is on the representation of aesthetic contrasts, and the contradictions created by these contrasts are often quite provocative.
From Cold Salamis to Cold Marbles
In 1999, Delvoye made ornamental motifs from high-quality meat products such as ham slices, salami and mortadella, which he would later photograph and print in large format. The more organic, subject to decay and changeable the meat, the more durable, timeless and magnificent the marble floor. These marble floors thus became a series of photographs of meticulously cut delicatessen products arranged in geometric patterns based on Italian Baroque and Islamic motifs. With a perfect aesthetic arrangement and rhythmic harmony, the various kinds of meats placed on the floor reflect dichotomies such as organic-inorganic, sacred and profane, laying the source of sustenance at our feet and leaving it at a point somewhere between appetizing and disturbing as soon as we approach and realize what we are looking at. The artist, who reminds us at every opportunity of his interest in all kinds of living and non-living bodies, skins and materials and that there are no limits to ornamentation, manages to create a surprising visuality by playing with our instincts.
X-Ray Porns: Contemporary Vanitas
"I only believe in what I can see. In my universe there is no soul and there is no love. I've never seen the soul and I've never seen love. I've seen skeletons, teeth, penises, lungs with X-rays. I've never seen love." Delvoye's pornographic X-rays include thousands of frames of various people's skeletons, spinal cords, teeth, skulls, teeth, buttocks, oral sex moments, hand gestures. In this series, in which we find ourselves confronted with forms that are part skeleton, part ghost, the X-rays do not reveal what is hidden, but rather show the relationship between sex and death, turning these works into Vanitas full of irony. In 2016, Delvoye placed these images inside gigantic stained-glass windows. Instead of saints or characters from biblical stories, skeletons in passionate embraces, hugs and kisses between the window panels become anatomical decorations in a space where death is sacred, replacing religious transcendence with physical passion. This symbolism, which is used on the axis of life, pleasure and death, turns into a controversial proposition as the artist again combines - even deconstructs - the body and the sacred art of ornamentation.
Stable Symmetries and Rotating Ascenders
Developed by psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach, the "Rorschach Test" consists of a series of symmetrically shaped plates. One of the most well-known personality tests, the interpretation of which is left to the practitioner, Rorschach is a popular practice featured also in many Hollywood movies. Delvoye takes this visuality, which has inspired many artists throughout history, through sculpture and is often used to radically transform and mobilize a 19th century sculpture. Creating stable and rhythmic masses, the artist also reinterprets the tradition of high contrapost sculptures showing the body in an S-shape through figures and objects in the “Twisted Works” series. Twisting and bending the figures so that they appear to move between two or three dimensions, the artist expects the viewer to walk around the sculptures, to use their own body in order to understand them. As if caught in a hurricane or a tornado, the figures that rise upwards as if they will become independent from thee rigid, static bases and take to the air, transform the viewer's body by directing it towards them in a vortex.
SUPPO: Sharp, Moving and Gothic
Another group of Delvoye's best-known works is the Gothic style, in which he takes ordinary, everyday objects and plays with their design. Influenced by this complex and refined style, the decorative objects that emerge are a cross between monumentality and a passion for exploring the artistic styles of the past. While interpreting the mysterious, eerie, complex structure of the Middle Ages, emphasizing divinity with its soaring verticals, he also creates a new form of architecture with contemporary themes and industrial techniques. His 2012 laser-cut sculpture “Suppo” is one of the most important works in which the gothic style appears together with movement and his rotating sculptures. This work, which is also exhibited inside the Louvre Museum's famous pyramid, designed like a needle with sharp edges at both ends and a cyclical movement like a stylish rocket that will rise towards the sky, has skillfully brought together different styles and periods by adding another layer to the contrasting architecture of the pyramid and the Louvre building. Inspired by the architecture of the Cologne Cathedral, this structure gains a new context in every new space/context it enters or stands outside, combining the rigidity of the pre-modern with the fluidity of the post-modern with masterful craftsmanship using symbols of the high culture.
Head to the Sky as You Pour Concrete on the Ground: "Everyday reality rises and becomes heroic."
In “Concrete Mixer”, where Delvoye again transfers the gothic style to an ordinary construction vehicle, he smartly combines the spirit of the period, global contrasts, urban realities and the metaphor of earth and sky. At first glance, this vehicle, which again creates a divine connotation, completely loses its essence as a concrete mixer and becomes hybridized. This vehicle, which in our daily lives is terrifying as it approaches us with its rotating body, reminds us of the evil spirit of the construction industry that destroys everything in its path and at the same time, it searches for new meanings with its transformation into such an aesthetic and sacred form. Reflecting the weaknesses of the consumer and luxury society while kneading the mortar of the buildings to be stepped on and inhabited, the vehicle reflects a brand- new era in the sanctity of the construction industry, looking up to the sky, becoming divinized, rising vertically just like the skyscrapers surrounding it. In this respect, the gothic concrete mixer becomes an important symbol of Delvoye's clever use of various dualities to reflect the rise of everyday reality.
