Artist and Feminist Porn Award nominee May Ling Lu uses a variation of material to create her work. Ranging from pen, ink and menstrual blood. May ling Lu details and documents her body’s monthly ritual.
Su’s work is titled On My Period for the full project and more graphic details you can access On her website. May Ling Su has spent the last two years taking photographs, videos, and diaries.
This images shows May ling Su smearing her own menstrual blood all over her naked body on a beach. Which I thing still invites sexual intention. Despite there being menstrual blood.
“Su’s art takes her menstrual blood and pairs it with her sexuality in a way that clashes the stigma of dirtiness and uncleanliness that menstruation has held for many for centuries.”( Hecht, M. 2012. SmartArt)
There’s not a lot of information regarding the image but I felt compelled to display and acknowledge the artist Zanele Muholi and what her work stands for. She is a south African artist that created artwork using menstrual blood.Muholi work tells a story of black lesbians in South Africa and represent “curative rape. She believes that by using menstrual blood as a medium it empowers her subject, expressing pain and lost. I personally think that the medium empowers her work, the image itself looks attractive but underneath the surface it suppresses all the badness and pain that still exists in peoples life that needs to be brought to the fourth.
Even though the subject between my work and Muholi are completely different they both share similarities with regards to women being treated like pieces of meat instead of individuals and being respected.
“Drawing on her experiences as a lesbian in South Africa, Muholi’s body of work speaks eloquently to the violence and attempts at erasure visited upon her community. In my mind, one of the most important and effective means of creating real change in any community is by inspiring people to personally recognize and respect the humanity of the “others” experiencing brutal violence. In this capacity, art can succeed where politics sometimes fail.” (Jamie, 2012.http://www.autostraddle.com/artist-attack-zanele-muholi-13277/)
I continue to bleed each time I read about rampant curative rapes in my ‘democratic’ South Africa. I bleed every time queer bodies are violated and refused citizenship due to gender expression and sexual orientation within the African continent. I constantly bleed when I hear about brutal murders of black lesbians in our townships and surrounding areas. I’m scarred and scared as I don’t know whose body will be next to be buried. I bleed because our human rights are ripped. I cry and bleed as mothers, lovers, friends, relatives lose their beloved ones, let alone the children that become orphans because of trans/queerphobic violence. We bleed, our life cycles invaded, we bleed against the will of our bodies and beings.
– Zanele Muholi
I can honestly say that I am not a big fan of Marcel Duchamp. The ready made artist also used bodily fluids to create a piece of art work called Paysage Fautif. This “artwork” was a gift for his Brazilian lover, sculptor Maria Martins back in 1946.
Even though this piece was originally created as a private act, it is now a public piece of work. I do understand that art can be erotic and can be sexually inviting but is this going alittle bit to far?
Andres Serrano was another artist that I found that used bodily fluids in his work. On this occasion it was a photograph of a crucifix plunged into a jar of piss. This piece of work created a big outrange among Christians because of his disrespect towards Christ. But after reading behind his meaning I can understand what he was implying.
“The thing about the crucifix itself is that we treat it almost like a fashion accessory. When you see it, you’re not horrified by it at all, but what it represents is the crucifixion of a man,” Serrano told the Guardian. “And for Christ to have been crucified and laid on the cross for three days where he not only bled to death, he shat himself and he peed himself to death. So if Piss Christ upsets you, maybe it’s a good thing to think about what happened on the cross.” (Holpuch, A. 2012. The Guardian.)
Whilst re-searching about Blood, I though it best to broaden my search criteria to all bodily fluids, to assess everything that has gone before, so I have enough knowledge and supporting evidence.
I came across some very disturbing artworks one from artist Piero Manzoni, who created Artist’s Shit in 1961. I am amazed that this is considered to be art as it is ‘shit’. But it is on display at the Tate gallery. The Tate gallery only have 1 tin (number 4) of the 90 tins that were made which contains ‘Artist’s shit’.
‘ In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: ‘I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit, that is really his.’ (Letter reprinted in Battino and Palazzoli p.144.)
