Posted on 12/05/2001 5:00:43 AM PST by jerod
CALGARY - The Banff Centre, one of the country's most prestigious cultural institutions, has provided about $1,300 in financial assistance for a Mexican performance artist to ejaculate into glass vials as part of an international artist exchange agreement.
Israel Mora, 33, masturbates privately into seven glass vials that he says represent seven members of his family. The vials are then placed in a cooler, which Mr. Mora currently has strung up between two trees at the Banff Centre.
Mr. Mora has also been wheeling the cooler around the streets of Banff on a small cart.
Mr. Mora is at the centre on a $4,000, seven-week residency. The government of Mexico is covering two-thirds of the cost and the Banff Centre, which receives about 22% of its $42-million budget from government funding, is covering the rest.
His project, titled Level 7, "aims to examine the concepts of privacy and intimacy within contemporary society," according to an announcement by the Banff Centre. "Mora will explore the boundaries of what constitutes a private experience, and the ways in which social practice alters the definition of privacy. Level 7 identifies the body as the origin of private impulses. Mora intends to undertake a private act and examine the ways in which it intersects with a public context."
Printed on the outside of Mr. Mora's chest of semen is: "Warning: Contains 6 ml of semen extracted through masturbation, distributed among seven glass tubes."
Connie MacDonald, communications director for the Banff Centre, said she has no complaints about Mr. Mora's project.
"A lot of people have this concept that art is beautiful and it hangs on the wall. What we focus on is trying to help people understand what contemporary art is. By definition it explores current issues in society and creates dialogue often on topics around poverty and death and sexuality."
Mr. Mora teaches theory and practice in the department of Visual Arts at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico.
We've come a long way from the Monet and Renoir works I saw last month. I'm sure this new art was on the tip of their... forget it...
Does he hold the prestigious "Joycelyn Elders Chair" there?
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