All artists put a little bit of their soul into every composition . But these artists put their mortal – and a whole lot more – into their art .
1. Hair and Nails
When Hananuma Masakichi get a line he was die of T.B. , he wanted to give his girl a way to remember him . So he reconstruct a life - sized and startlingly realistic statue of himself using K of landing strip of wood – some theme say between 2,000 and 5,000 strips , others say as many as 20,000 . The comic strip are oblige together by glue , dovetail articulation , or wooden pegs , and fits so precisely that no furrow are visible across the whole figure .
During the construction , Masakichi even sacrifice pieces of his own physical structure to help his wooden doppelganger come to life . He not only pulled out his own fingernail and toenails to attach to the statue , he also allegedly yanked his own teeth for the figure ’s sass . He then fastidiously drill tiny yap , one for each of his pores , and hook the corresponding hair’s-breadth from his body to paste it into the same pore on the statue . Yes , he even did this with the hairs under his loincloth .
Masakichi finished his statue in 1885 and put it on video display . He stand next to the statue in the same airs , and many viewers could n’t tell which was the real man and which was made out of wood . Sadly , it was all for null . The girlfriend left him , he never made any real money from the statue , and some reports say that when he finally break 10 twelvemonth afterward , it was n’t even from TB ; apparently he received a bad diagnosis .
When Robert Ripley began collect the globe ’s oddities in the 1930s , Masakichi ’s statue was one of the first detail he acquired , paying a San Francisco saloon - possessor $ 10 for it . Among the hundreds of items Ripley possess over the class , Masakichi ’s statue was one of his front-runner , often displayed in his museum and even in his own home .
2. Bloody Good Art (#1)
Van Gogh paint some far-famed ego - portraits . Frida Kahlo painted herself into many of her own pieces . Even Leonardo da Vinci drew a skillful rendition of himself . But none of those creative person have take ego - portraiture to the extreme of Britart star Marc Quinn , with his series of sculptures known asSelf . Starting in 1991 and continuing once every five age until 2006 , Quinn took a cast of his full head and then cast it in nearly five l of his own profligate , which he drained over a full stop of about five months . The blood sculpture are quite thin and have to be stash away in particular infrigidation units that keep each straits at 10 ° F ( -12 ° C ) to keep thaw .
The firstSelfwas purchase by one of the Britart movement ’s biggest former supporters , Charles Saatchi , who pay £ 13,000 for it . There were rumors that the carving had melt down in 2003 while Saatchi was ingest his kitchen remodel – probably to please his wife , fame chef Nigella Lawson . He proved those rumor false when he soldSelffor £ 1.5 million in 2005 to an American collector . The final variation , Self IV , is on presentation at the National Portrait Gallery in London .
3. Bloody Good Art (#2)
All artists suffer for their art , but Lani Beloso has made her suffering into art instead . Beloso hasmenorrhagio , a shape that causes her to have very heavy , very painful menstrual cycles . Wishing to make her suffering worth something , she begin collecting her menstrual flow every calendar month and used it for a series of 13 picture , map a yr ’s worth of catamenial rhythm , which she calledThe Period Piece .
For her follow - up,2nd Period , Beloso has encased her art in two sheets of plexiglass like a slide quick to go under the microscope . The painting is then flow aside from the wall so that light shines through , casting an range of a function , creating a second piece of work of art .
4. Urine Trouble
Few pieces of art have evoked emotions like Andres Serrano ’s 1987Immersion ( Piss Christ ) . The photo depicts a plastic crucifix that is drown in a glass container filled with what Serrano claim is his urine . Serrano mean the part to be a instruction on the commercialism of religion and a manifestation on the direction Christian symbols are process in America . Of naturally this is not how everyone – especially Christians – render the study .
After the pic was uncover in 1989 , it was touch with a flurry of controversy . The heat grew when it was discovered that Serrano had received $ 15,000 from the publicly funded National Endowment for the Arts ( NEA ) . politician were outraged that tax dollars had paid for art from Serrano and other controversial artist who many of their component part found blasphemous . They move to have the NEA ’s monetary fund countermand , but were finally abortive . As a compromise , the NEA no longer provides money to individual artists , but alternatively patronage art projects that take into consideration " worldwide criterion of decency and regard for the diverse notion and values of the American public . "
Since its debut , prints ofPiss Christhave been at times attack by protesters . In 1997 , after a failed attack by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne , Australia , to have the pic removed from an exhibit , the photo was smashed by two adolescent with a hammer . Most latterly , in April 2011 , members of a French Christian chemical group also took a hammer to the piece of music , and then used a sharp object to blemish the photograph . rather of taking the photograph down or closing the display , the gallery reopened the next day with the damaged picture in post " so people can see what barbarian can do . "
5. Really Crappy Art
Manzoni sold each tin , which matter about 30 Hans C. J. Gram ( or just over an ounce ) , for the going - rate of gold , allowing the price to fluctuate with the cherished metals market . At the metre , in 1961 , his tins sold for about $ 37 each ; in today ’s market , they ’d go for about $ 1800 . But , as if to bear witness his tip , the tins presently sell for many times that at auction sale . The Tate Modern Art Museum in London spend £ 22,300 for one of the tin in 2000 . Just seven class later , one sold at Sotheby ’s for € 124,000 .
Merda d’artistawas part of a serial publication by Manzoni , includingFiato d’artista , orArtist ’s Breath – balloons fill from his own lung . He also planned to makeSangue d’artista , orArtist ’s stemma , but that labor never get off the ground . Maybe he just was n’t willing to bleed for his art .
6. Is That Hair Gel?
7. Nope. Not Hair Gel.
This is n’t Ostrowski ’s only example of using his body for artwork – he is also notable for using his own feces to paint portraits of Hitler and other German leaders .
8. Limited Edition DNA
For many creative person , the most personal tender they put on a piece is their signature . Barry Freedland , on the other helping hand , uses his identity to create most of his art . Freedland has design , built , and program robots that can draw beautiful , complex shape by repeatedly stamping out a transcript of his thumbprint . He has also fit out bots with a plaster cast of his own helping hand holding a graphite pencil , so even though he ’s not technically drawing the artwork , he still has his " hand " in the transactions . But perhaps most interesting of all is Freedland ’s work with his own DNA .
