Gelatin’s sculptures, presumably made of plaster and clay, were striking for their textures.
It was not entirely certain what Gelatin hoped to add to the discourse, though they made their meaning quite clear in the following statement: “This is a show for all who think that contemporary art is shit. Finally Wilfredo Prieto’s Excrement and Caviar (2011) bitingly symbolizes the excesses of our time. (Manzoni’s work may actually include other items as reported by Stuart Jeffries in “Shit! Manzoni’s work doesn’t do what it says on the tin,” in The Guardian, 2007.) In 1998, Marc Quinn followed Self (1991), a self-portrait made from his own blood, with Shit Head. The contemporary tradition can be traced back to Piero Manzoni’s iconic Artist’s Shit (1961), which commented on the art world and the phenomenon of the artist’s brand.
Also monumental, this inflatable, outdoor work comically escaped its moors to tumble and crash into a building in Switzerland in 2008, an event widely reported in the international press. Turd-centered works of art have, of course, appeared before, including Paul McCarthy’s Complex Pile (2007). In the dressing area, a couple of whoopee cushions were affixed to the seating to produce predictable sounds.
The point was to offer people a way to free their minds, adopt a different persona, and join in on the eccentric fun. The different colors presumably symbolized fictional races. At the entrance to “Vorm-Fellows-Attitude,” soft sculpture costumes-each with a sewn-on abstraction of exposed male and female genitalia-were offered to viewers in a makeshift dressing room. Vienna-based Gelatin (Gantner, Tobias Urban, Ali Janka, and Florian Reither) produce “rebellious, playful, and welcoming” works. The four giant piles were set atop Oriental rugs to accentuate their high art status. According to Gelatin member Wolfgang Gantner, “The question isn’t why poop, but why not poop?” A video discussion accompanying the group’s recent show of monumental turd sculptures further clarifies the choice of subject matter with references to “democratic art” and how we all create it, starting at the earliest age.