Piss, shit, and cum is to the modern art world what macaroni, fingerpaint, and glue is to the preschool art-time set. In this day and age you basically need to soil yourself while eating raw chicken parts in a tub full of maple syrup and bear urine just to get a foot in the door. It's old hat. We thought we were over these types of excretion pieces, but this weekend British artist Jordan McKenzie unveiled a new exhibition called Spent which upped the ante by actually being interesting to look at. The show features 55 paintings of his jizz sprinkled with carbon dust. While most people in the art community are fine with this, regular folks are somehow still outraged, OUTRAGED that someone would splooge on a canvas and hang it on a wall, and priests are even praying for his soul. We got in touch with Jordan to see if he could explain his work to the type of people who think blown loads belong in socks and tissues, not galleries.VICE: To the average, workaday shlub you're just jerking off onto a canvas. This guy, he's all, "What? You call this art?" Can you please add a little depth to the project, for the shlubs?
Jordan McKenzie: I wanted to keep a very intimate diary of events. These works are auto-drawings since I can't control the way that the semen hits the canvas.Pierre Molinier used to mix sperm into his paints because he wanted to put the best of himself in his work. Is that part of what your paintings are about too?
Not really. Often we think that drawing is done between the hand, the eye, and the brain, but we forget about what the rest of the body is doing. I've made works of art by drawing with my breath or pushing large cubes around, so this is just another extension, a different way of drawing with the body.Do you have any sorts of rituals to get you into an artistic mindset before making a piece, or do you just let 'er rip?
There isn't any strict formula for it, and I don't record what I'm thinking about or what I fantasized about. It's fairly functional.So you're probably not thinking of turning this into a performance piece then.
Actually, quite a few people have asked about that. And the answer is no. I don't want the spectacle of seeing me masturbate. I don't think it's necessary. We only need to look at the drawings to relate them to a physical act.What do you say to the criticism that you're just trying to capitalize on the shock-value of spunk??
We all know what it is to ejaculate, and vomit, so I'm kind of surprised that it's still a newsworthy topic, especially within a fine-art context. Manzoni canned his own shit and Warhol did piss paintings. I find it quite amazing that work around bodily fluids is still considered outrageous. Take the most iconic image of Jesus. There have been hundreds of paintings that feature blood coming out of his wounds. It's literally been going on for centuries.The work hasn't really been talked about or engaged in any kind of sophisticated manner. It's all just been "Oh my god! Isn't he a pervert!" I think it's a shame. The canvases aren't explicit. I hope that people will find the pieces beautiful, instead of getting worked up. I want people to feel seduced, but also kind of repulsed at the same time.- Jordan McKenzie's Spent at the Centre for Recent Drawing until February 1st.
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Jordan McKenzie: I wanted to keep a very intimate diary of events. These works are auto-drawings since I can't control the way that the semen hits the canvas.Pierre Molinier used to mix sperm into his paints because he wanted to put the best of himself in his work. Is that part of what your paintings are about too?
Not really. Often we think that drawing is done between the hand, the eye, and the brain, but we forget about what the rest of the body is doing. I've made works of art by drawing with my breath or pushing large cubes around, so this is just another extension, a different way of drawing with the body.Do you have any sorts of rituals to get you into an artistic mindset before making a piece, or do you just let 'er rip?
There isn't any strict formula for it, and I don't record what I'm thinking about or what I fantasized about. It's fairly functional.So you're probably not thinking of turning this into a performance piece then.
Actually, quite a few people have asked about that. And the answer is no. I don't want the spectacle of seeing me masturbate. I don't think it's necessary. We only need to look at the drawings to relate them to a physical act.What do you say to the criticism that you're just trying to capitalize on the shock-value of spunk??
We all know what it is to ejaculate, and vomit, so I'm kind of surprised that it's still a newsworthy topic, especially within a fine-art context. Manzoni canned his own shit and Warhol did piss paintings. I find it quite amazing that work around bodily fluids is still considered outrageous. Take the most iconic image of Jesus. There have been hundreds of paintings that feature blood coming out of his wounds. It's literally been going on for centuries.The work hasn't really been talked about or engaged in any kind of sophisticated manner. It's all just been "Oh my god! Isn't he a pervert!" I think it's a shame. The canvases aren't explicit. I hope that people will find the pieces beautiful, instead of getting worked up. I want people to feel seduced, but also kind of repulsed at the same time.- Jordan McKenzie's Spent at the Centre for Recent Drawing until February 1st.