Exhibitions2021Artist's Piss

Following a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign ‘Piscio d’Artista’, Gavin Turk exhibited the work with a selection of others in an exhibition in the heart of Soho, London’s Westend to experience the Artist’s Piss in real life.

In a nod to Piero Manzoni’s Merde D’Artiste and Warhol’s Campbell Soup, the art provocateur Gavin Turk created the perfect artwork to express the complexity of our contemporary jeopardy. During the Pandemic of 2020 – 2021, the Artist canned his own urine in a modified canning factory at his studio in Canning Town, East London.

Through this act the artist created a minimal impact artwork for a profligate society that has everything the heart could desire. The recycling of body waste has been put through the recycling of art history, encapsulated in a limited edition super shiny recycled aluminium can with the title of the work Artist’s Piss translated into 30 languages. Set against the backdrop of a culture that consumes more than 2 billion sweet fizzy canned drinks per day, the reflective surface of this work and its contents asks us to think about what we value.

This limited art edition of ‘Artist’s Piss’ continues in the lineage of Gavin Turk elegant paradigm shifting comments on value and waste. With a provocative invitation to desire our own waste products, and elevate our disgust to a fascination with value, this iconic relic will adorn contemporary mantlepieces for years to come.