Bio-Art

The field of Bio Art is easily, to me, the most interesting of those explored in this chapter. But the chapter states that the boundaries of what does and doesn't belong in this category are vague. "The category is not rigidly defined; as with any medium, there are debates about whether particular materials and practices fall within the category or not, such as whether the biological material needs to be alive when the artist uses it to qualify as bio-art" (Robertson, and McDaniel 245). I am in favor of the line being drawn between living and non-living materials, but where ever it lies, it must be enforced if we want to allow for this category to exist at all, because, as the chapter states, "... many art materials that were used in ancient artistic items were organic in origin, including wood fibers, feathers, and many kinds of pigments and dyes" (Robertson, and McDaniel 245). Indeed, if we are lax with the boundaries of this category, almost anything could be considered bio-art. Consider painting, in which we use brushes made from animal hair to spread pigment and oil onto a canvas (usually made of cotton) that has been primed with gesso or, as the old masters used, a glue made from rabbit skin. You can see that everything about painting originally, if not currently, used materials that were, or came from things that were, once alive, but it seems ridiculous to consider the paintings as Bio Art, doesn't it? If the "material" in question is still alive, though, the presence of life and the concept of manipulating it undeniably takes the foreground as a main them in the work.

But when we look at the concept of manipulating life, we have to ask what exactly makes this practice and study count as Art. George Gessert, who the book introduces, "selectively breeds wild irises to produce what he considers highly artistic versions, calling his practice "genetic folk art" (Robertson, and McDaniel 245). This brief explanation provided may be omitting much of what there is to Gessert's work, but because it is introducing him as an artist, and this is the information it provides, it assumes that this is enough for us to recognize him as an artist. Reading this, I believe he simply sounds like a breeder who calls himself an artist. Eduardo Kac, has been one of my favorite artists for a while. While he does work with gene manipulation and transferring genes between organisms (such as creating a fluorescent green bunny and a petunia with some of his own DNA in it which he named the Edunia), and while the genes may be symbolically meaningful, I know there is an entirely other world involved in his work, where he makes prints and other more traditional artwork inspired and based on his Bio Artwork. Where is the actual Art in this split, in the often aesthetically-lacking experimental work or the traditional work that is easier to distribute and that he doesn't need help from a team of scientists to make? Much of his art that fits into the strict interpretation of Bio Art could also easily be considered Performance Art, such as online broadcasts of himself being hooked up to a machine that uses his blood to keep a flame burning or the controversial events following the birth of the fluorescent bunny. I'd like to posit the notion that because of the presence of life within bio-art, and the fact that life takes place within the passage of time, that all bio art is always a type of performance art.

McDaniel, Craig and Jean Robertson. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2010. 233-270.