Chrissy Caviar

June 20, 2003 10:58 AM

Is It Art Or Is It Just Ewww? Four centuries after the first stirrings of body art and four decades after Piero Manzini's Merda d'Artista and his egg-eating sessions there is Chrissy Caviar by Chrissie Conant, complete with website and Quicktime video. A can of Manzoni's shit was recently bought for over $30000 by the Egg-sponsored Tate Gallery. For that money you could buy ten whole kilos of Royal Beluga from Petrossian costs ten times less. Difficult call.
posted by MiguelCardoso (15 comments total)

costs ten times less.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:01 AM on June 20, 2003

Um, the Tate bought their can over a year ago (not exactly recently) and they paid over $60,000 for it!
posted by Pollomacho at 11:09 AM on June 20, 2003

Sorry, I was reading an article from Australia, $30,000 would be closer! The actual cost in March of 2002 was 22,300 pounds.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:11 AM on June 20, 2003

Past Manzoni threads also here and here
posted by matteo at 11:15 AM on June 20, 2003

In the context of fine art, using my genes as a commodity, I am making art with my body, by collaborating with technology. And I am trying to manifest, and be productive with, my highly emotional desires to find Mr. Right, and create a family together.

Btw, this last sentence made me suspect a hoax.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:19 AM on June 20, 2003

Why get the Chrissie Caviar when you could just get the floaty pen?
posted by me3dia at 11:23 AM on June 20, 2003

If she was real artist she'd put the caviar on some nice toast points and serve it with some swanky champagne at her next, ummm, opening.
posted by monkeyman at 11:42 AM on June 20, 2003

Actually, these Homeland Security Chokers are pretty cool. Much more, er, tasteful political art.
posted by me3dia at 11:46 AM on June 20, 2003

A now-deceased close friend of mine used to sneer at stunts like this as "drop-your-pants art." George, I wish you were still around so I could tell you just how literally true your aphorism has just rung.
posted by alumshubby at 11:53 AM on June 20, 2003

Chrissy, I would love to have your baby, but I'm afraid it might end up with a "supernumerary nipple" like yours, so I'm afraid you're going to have to find another caviar-craving stud.
posted by kozad at 12:24 PM on June 20, 2003

I love "art" like this cause it freaks people out. "What the fuck!? That's not art! Grrrr!" A friend of mine once defined "art" as a deliberate creation that evokes an emotional response, and I'd say that this fits the bill nicely.
posted by mikrophon at 1:25 PM on June 20, 2003

a deliberate creation that evokes an emotional response

I am an artist, smell my farts
posted by monkeyman at 1:56 PM on June 20, 2003

a deliberate creation that evokes an emotional response

Stockhausen was right, then? Mohammed Atta as Raffaello?
posted by matteo at 3:40 PM on June 20, 2003

matteo: hmmm, curious you'd raise Stockhausen at this juncture. My wife and I were just discussing his claim that 09.11 was "the greatest work of art in all history," in the context of a Paul Virilio book.

I'd modify the definition offered by adding that the deliberate intention to create art has to be present in the mind of the creator. Furthermore, anybody capable of seeing art in massive human suffering is not someone I'd particularly want to do First Thursday with, know what I'm saying?
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:55 PM on June 20, 2003

I was careful to use "creation" in place of "action," in an attempt to avoid such an association, but, ultimately, yes. Stockhausen has a very strong argument.

the deliberate intention to create art has to be present in the mind of the creator

I'd like to disagree with this, but I'm hard pressed to find an exception. The closest I can come would be song-poem music, which was art in spite of intentions in many cases.
posted by mikrophon at 9:19 AM on June 21, 2003