LONDON. The Belgian artist Wim Delvoye is issuing 100 bonds that can be exchanged in three years time for vacuum-packed artificial shit created by his Cloaca machine, exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 2002. The machine mimics the human digestive system and produced convincingly realistic human excrement. Delvoye is also launching an Art Farm Pigs Growth Fund whereby people can invest in his swine farm outside Beijing in China. This farm, established last year, has nine boars and sows which are tattooed with a variety of designs created by Delvoye and three other tattooists in residence. “The pigs art fund will be an official Chinese company which I hope to launch in the next few weeks”, he says. “The new bonds and pig farm shares scheme make the mechanisms of the art market so transparent”, he added.
“This initiative is in its early stages”, said Mr Delvoye’s assistant Gianni Degryse. “We may set up a similar bond scheme for the pig farm. People may even be able to purchase one of the animals”.
The Cloaca bonds, worth E3,000 ($3,670) each, are on sale until 30 November. Customers must visit Delvoye’s Ghent studio to purchase them.
Each bond has three separate coupons which can be exchanged every year for interest, set at 1.3%, earned in the same way as interest on a savings account. The real test however will come at the end of the three-year period when collectors will either cash in the bond certificate for the original sum of E3,000 or opt for the Cloaca-faeces. “What will be most profitable after three years: the certificate, the money with interest, or the work itself?”, asks Mr Degryse. “The certificate may be considered a work of art in itself”.
The legal aspect of the bonds scheme has been arranged by a Ghent-based lawyer, Tim Laureys. He “negotiated with the Belgian Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission (CBFA) to ensure the bonds are guaranteed”, says Mr Degryse.
An adviser in alternative asset investments based in London, who asked to remain nameless, said: “The risk is more in the principal of the scheme. At 1.3% interest, the artist should be able to cover that cost. Investors are assuming the main risk which is that the faeces will be worth at least the original principal amount when they sell. In this case, this is more like an equity option”.
Delvoye says he sees “art as a commodity which can make a yield monetarily or symbolically”. After selling “30 or 40 boxes of shit following the launch of Cloaca in 2000” he says, he began to question if he would always be “a small shrimp compared to Microsoft”. His next step was to establish the bonds scheme which has been three years in development. Delvoye is not the first artist to cash in on shit. Piero Manzoni caused a stir in 1961 when he packaged his faeces in 90 small cans.
Meanwhile, Delvoye is in discussions with an Antwerp-based transport company to design a chapel to house a series of 12 Gothic-style stained glass windows from the company’s collection that are decorated with medical X-ray photographs. A spokesman for the firm confirmed that a building permit for the chapel had been obtained from the town council.
- Gareth Harris
