In the Shunyi Xiaodian district of Beijing, there was a special farm. It is special because other farms raise pigs for slaughter or pets, and some farms may be open for visits.
But the "art farm" founded in 2004 by artist Wim Devoy is home to a herd of tattooed pigs. "Tattooing a pig" sounds like a fantasy, but Wim Devoy boldly tries.
In today's view, he has achieved good results, and the price of tattooed pigs on the farm has soared, and pig skins have also been welcomed by major art exhibitions and luxury brands. Under him, a single pig skin could sell for an average of 510,000.
However, the Belgian artist Devoy has been controversial for tattooing live pigs, and some people think that he is cruel and brings a lot of pain to pigs (which were originally to be slaughtered and eaten); There are also those who find this kind of artistic performance and artwork amazing.
So why did Devoy choose to tattoo the pig? What kind of artist is he to sell a pig skin for a sky-high price? And why did you come to China to create? Today, let's talk about this story.
Maverick new conceptual artist
Wim de Voy, born in 1965, is a well-known Belgian artist of new ideas. His hometown is Flanders, Belgium, which was once the richest region in Europe during the Middle Ages, so the cultural sources here are diverse, intertwined and integrated.
Moreover, Ferandland is in the heart of Europe, so it has been frequently attacked by artillery fire in history, so that people here have more thinking about the good and evil of human nature than other regions.
In this more unique cultural context, Ferland has produced many alternative artists and painters, and Wim DeVoy is undoubtedly one of them. When he was a child, his parents often took him to churches or art galleries, and the local people's reverence for gods and paintings left a great impression on Devoy.
Although he did not understand the meaning at all, he knew that these objects were important to humans. When he grew up, Devoy still maintained his love of painting and sculpture, so he naturally came to the local art academy to study.
Devoy has been working on art since graduation, and due to the influence of his environment and childhood, devoy's early works of art were mostly churches, buildings, or other large objects in life.
This sounds normal, but he only uses this artistic image, expressing a completely different concept from religion and love of life, a boring and empty idea.
After 1990, the subject matter of his work began to move closer to the body of living things. Of course, most of the time it is the human body, but after devoy's creation, these human body parts become "disgusting".
For example, in his 1999 Kiss, just like the name, the content of the work is the shape and folds of the anus. The following year, he used X-rays to show the pictures of human body X sex, and soon after, he created the "Excretory Cavity" series of works based on the theme of human digestion and excretion.
In simple terms, it is the use of modern machinery to simulate the process of human excretion, although the device is not really feces, but it will still make people feel uncomfortable and nauseous.
However, DeVoy and his supporters ignored criticism from the outside world, and in fact the art world spoke highly of his work because the artistic ideas expressed in it and the techniques he used were amazing and unexpected.
Overall, in addition to these controversial works, Dvoy's other art, "Pig Skin Tattoo", is even more controversial, and even attracts criticism and criticism from animal protectionists.
For pig tattoos, a pig skin sold for 510,000
Around 1990, Devoy came up with the idea of tattooing pigs, which was in line with his usual satire of "waste, nothingness." So he immediately bought some pig skins at a slaughterhouse in the United States and tattooed them.
A few years later, Devoy felt that there was a lack of life tension in the creation of dead objects, and it was difficult for the finished work to have a visual impact. So, he immediately thought of the idea of tattooing live pigs.
But this is not a very realistic idea in Europe and the United States, especially in Western Europe, this kind of "animal cruelty" is prohibited, although people raise pigs mostly for meat, which inevitably requires the use of knives to kill pigs.
However, they seem to have a hard time accepting that devoy tattoos on live pigs on the grounds that tattoos are not the pig's will and cause unnecessary pain to the pigs. Presumably, Devoy was also aware of the problem that it was unlikely that he would get the consent of the pig to tattoo himself and his assistants.
So he set his sights on the continent, where animal protection policies were relatively loose (or more precisely). In 2004, Devoy came to the Shunyi area of Beijing, where he built a special farm for white-skinned pigs imported from Europe.
Because their fur is relatively easier to tattoo, every day the local people will see Devoy and his companions take care of the pigs like nannies, feeding them good feed, and feeding them beer, ice cream and other snacks.
At each fixed time, they will also be pulled out and coated with sunscreen oil for exercise. This series of bizarre behaviors is really confusing. Of course, the pigs here are not treated in vain.
Every two weeks, Devoy's assistant would anesthetize the pig with an anesthetic needle, then take out a tattoo tool and tattoo the pig's body according to devoy's design drawings, such as a cross, a pair of wings, a locomotive, and even some brand logos.
When pigs wake up, they still feel pain from tattoos, so for the next two weeks, Devoy and his assistants will "compensate" them as much as possible. After the pigs die naturally, Devoy will peel off their skins so that the work of "Pig Skin Tattoo" is officially completed.
After these pigskins become works of art, they can often be sold at a good price, and the average price of the skins of more than two hundred pigs bred in Shunyi can reach about 100,000 yuan. When international brand manufacturers first heard that "some people tattooed their trademarks on pigs", they planned to appeal to protect the rights and interests of their brands.
Their reason is that Devoy reuses these famous brands to increase the value of pigs, but after consultation and communication, the brand side seems to understand the business opportunities behind the tattooed pig, so they began to buy Devoy's tattooed pig skin at a high price, and Chanel once bid 510,000 yuan to buy one of his pigskins.
In 2006, a man named Tim was inspired by Tattooed Pigskin to ask Devoy to tattoo him on the back, and the two reached a "romantic" gentleman's agreement:
After Tim's death, the tattoo on his back will be cut off along with the human skin and will be exhibited three times a year by hand by a German collector. I have to say that this is another artistic creation that shocks people's three views.
Referring to the value of tattoos on pigs, Devoy believes that "from an economic point of view, tattooing pigs is undoubtedly an act of 'raising the value of pigs'. As the pig grows older, so will the number of tattoos on its body.
This is much the same as the added value of "raising a piglet to adulthood", both of which bring some benefits to the people who raise it. The tattooed pig is just adding some art to it, so it is more valuable and more abstract. ”
Genius or madman? Why did you come to China?
Wim Devoy rose to fame with his tattooed pigs and the Excretory cavities series, but his approach to performance has also attracted heat. For people, de Voy is undoubtedly a paradoxical existence, a combination of art and contradiction.
On the one hand, critics and artists have a very high evaluation of his works of art, on the other hand, his artistic ideas are still difficult for the public to understand. DeVoy is more in line with the public's impression of a "crazy artist", who is keen to expose the essence of human nature with his works:
It is a waste of time and desire, and it is ridiculed and fooled by a very rampant extreme or delicate method. In the case of Tattooed Pigskin alone, art critics and his supporters found Devoy's creation creative, unique, and ironic.
Others believe he is a cruel art creator, and tattooing pigskin is a kind of "artistic violence", an eye-catching act. Opponents of Dvoy, however, do not seem to buy into his rhetoric, pointing out that Dvoy is undoubtedly "pinching soft persimmons."
According to Devoy's artistic philosophy, he could also try tattoos on lions, tigers, leopards, or a donkey, but he was just bullying a pig because pigs wouldn't resist.
When asked why he came to China from Europe to create, Devoy told reporters: "I have a good impression of China. And I can't finish the tattooed pig skin work in Europe, there are too many rules and regulations in Europe, which makes them think very rigidly.
It would be difficult to allow me to start a farm with tattooed pigs, let alone to scribble on the pigs used to eat meat. In contrast, China has been growing rapidly in recent years, and they have already overtaken Europe in terms of technology and infrastructure.
And people are more welcome to start businesses and invest in factories, and of course people like me are allowed to do art. In my opinion, such an environment will produce a group of excellent artists who will create for their own national culture, rather than blindly pleasing Western aesthetics and values...
Wim de Voy has opened several solo art exhibitions, participated in some institutional art exhibitions, and moved his work into the Louvre, which is not common among living artists.
But even so, controversy over his work continues. As for whether his works must be cruel, violent, and explicit for the sake of satirical artistic effects? Or is it simply because his artistic concept is not normal enough and makes people feel uncomfortable?
Outsiders cannot make fair comments, after all, modern art is no longer concrete, but more and more abstract and more controversial. What do you think about that?