Wim Delvoye's pigskin tattoos have stirred up a storm of controversy, This particular design must surely be the most inflammatory. It features deceased al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the pose of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Self described architect, prankster, farmer, megalomaniac: Wim Delvoye is an extreme artist, willing to chase an idea to its unsettling conclusion. To make his point Delvoye has mastered not only the skills of the traditional artisan - from weaving, tattooing, ceramics, stained glass and steel - he has also engineered the most perfect shit.
Delvoye often triggers controversy but he is a stealth artist, astutely exposing all the finger-wagging snobbism about his art. He was in New York recently during Armory week, noting the changes in the Meat Packing District where he once lived in the late 90s. In 2001 he showed hisCloaca machine at the New Museum. "I thought it was going to be a disaster during the anthrax scare. It was a bio-machine making shit," says Delvoye, in a thick accent with a hint of mischief. During our conversation he frequently had me in titters over his escapades - he knows the common notions people have about his art and will happily play up his schoolboy antics. Settling down to chat, (with a coffee, after toilet and squeezing blackheads - he volunteers to add) he takes me on a journey into his cosmicomical universe - being on the run from the Louis Vuitton police, his plans for a Gothic wonderland and his friendship with Ai WeiWei. I listen, as though back at school again, squeamish and awed by the nerve of the schoolyard's most notorious prankster.
Tattooed Pigs and the Louis Vuitton Police
He sold his NY place soon after 9/11, and with an instinct for the next wave, moved to where it was more happening: he bought a pig farm in China. At his art farm Delvoye tattooed live pigs. Galleries were reluctant to show art that snorted and oinked, but says Delvoye, "I prefer showing them that way as a dead pig skin is a big compromise." The few art-pigs he has left will be kept until they die of old age before being parted from their precious hides, which purchasing collectors have to wait for. More contentious though, was the piece of pork with the Louis Vuitton logo branded on its back. The corporation is very particular about the usage of its brand and hounded Delvoye all the way to Shanghai in an attempt to confiscate the hides.
Delvoye believes that our imagination has been co-opted by powerful images: You cannot read the original Pinnochio without visualizing it in colours tainted by Disney. Recently, an American company had even filed for the rights of the word Om, in use for thousands of years in India. "There should be a counter-attack," he says, "for visual pollution. Big companies are paying taxes to the government: the rights to blow dirty air into the atmosphere. People on the way to work see all these brands, bags, shoes. Brands attacking their collective memory."
Tattooed Pigskins, Untitled (Art Farm China), 2005, tattooed pigskin on oval stretcher, handcarved gilded frame, H 58 x 50 cm, © Wim Delvoye
The brand's value was based on a psychological notion of opulence, and they were sensitive to protecting this as they deemed fit. Still, an artist should have the right to comment on cultural icons, and Delvoye has used many other brands over the last 15 years, including signing his name with Disney letters, and playing off such ubiquitous cultural entities as Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble's Mr. Clean. The owner of LV is much more of a perfectionist, and a good manager, defending his products at all costs, than he is an art-lover - I mean loving art is just one of the many rings he has on his fingers," said Delvoye, candidly adding, "He is a mogul, and he has art to outsmart other moguls."
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