In one of the main scenes in English August - a 1994 landmark film in contemporary Indian Cinema and a must watch for every cinematic art lover - the camera in deft moves pans on a well-formed output of human end product. The scene is artistically shot and in place of eliciting scorn on the face and sickness in the pit of one's stomach brings out a good laugh at the nicely projected satire and awe at a remarkable directorial feat.
In December 2007, 21 designer doors made from human excreta, designed by Mexico-based designers Santiago Sierra and Mariana David and prepared by the research team of Sulabh International in New Delhi were put on display at the prestigious Lisson Art Gallery of London.
And just a year before, guess what came under the hammer! It's life size bronze replica, sculpted by Daniel Edwards, was shown at a New York Art Gallery. By now, I am sure, Christie's high brow officials have put a lens over it to study its intricate details and have decided to auction it to an equally unbelievable audience for whom, I guess, anything could be art, even celebrity crap. Yes, we are talking about a Hollywood actor's then illegitimate child's first solid poop that caught the fancy of some art afficionados.
Sad to see that the art lovers have come to such a state when their object of inspiration lies in excreta albeit that of an infant whose sole claim to fame happens to be that she was born out of wedlock of a father famous for his screen histrionics and a wannabe actor mother. What happened to our values and character that made us look up to the truly great achievers.
These are not instances in isolation. Serious art, be it painting or photography or sculpture, specially that centering on the developing world has focussed its brush or lens or chisel on the shit and squalour that abound these parts of the globe.
If that's the criteria, how about taking my two beautiful babies as probable subjects - a black and tan beauty of a German Shepherd and a bonny, golden Labrador and casting their daily output into perhaps gold. I can assure you, theirs is definitely a work of art in terms of shape, texture, form, colour or whatever parameter you wish to choose.
Or perhaps, you may want to get a bit more exotic and hit the slums of a third world country and handpick a really impoverished kid who, being deprived of even one fair meal a day, spends lot of energy trying to take out a proper (S-shaped, as Oprah would say) piece of digestive end product. What a rare and thought provoking work of art that would make for. And I am told, anything to do with the third world or Asian exotica sells at the moment.
I wonder what's going to be the next source of fascination for the soul starved, hype-stricken, marketing savvy art lovers. Maybe a frozen-in-time fountain of someone's first or last pee, lit with neon lights and put up on the world's canvas for all to see.
