Are you a classy, art-loving type of person? Do you indulge yourself with the finest furs, foods and liqueurs? Do you struggle with the fact that, now matter how expensive your imbibed goods of choice are, they all come out the other end worth absolutely nada? Artist Tobias "Tobi" Wong heard your prayers and delivered. The late artist created a pill that will "turn your innermost parts into chambers of wealth." Yes, you read that right, this art turns any indulgent rich kid with a regular bowel movement in to an art-maker par excellence.
The bizarre conflation of luxury and inflated consumerism was part of a collection called INDULGENCE, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in 2005 and designed by Tobias Wong and Ju$t Another Rich Kid, aka Ken Courtney.
The collection aimed to create desirable goods for the wealthy kid who already possessed it all; another featured item was a gold-dipped pen cap turned into a cocaine spoon. But the artwork has experienced a recent resurgence from a website named CITIZEN:Citizen. What's the going rate to turn your excrement into a precious mineral, you ask? It's $425 for a 20 mm pill, but it's unclear as to how much gold excrement this will yield. Unfortunately at this time the golden pills are "currently unavailable" on CITIZEN:Citizen's online store, so you likely won't be finding them in your stocking this year.
Wong is not the first artist to experiment with the combination of gold and feces, in case you were wondering. In 2007, Terence Koh reportedly sold his own gold-plated excrement for $500,000. (The endeavor was apparently such a hit, he ended up selling the excrement alone for a bargain $150.) But Piero Manzoni did it first; in 1961, the Italian artist allegedly canned his own feces in a work entitled, "Merda d'artista" ("Artist's Shit"). The Tate even bought a can, and Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder lent one to the Museum of Modern Art as well. Although the actual contents are in question, the spirit of the project survives in Koh's and Wong's insouciant projects.
What do you think readers? Would you ever pop a pill for precious poop?
Check out other shocking acts by artists in the slideshow below and let us know if you think the poop pills will stand the test of time.
