B.

This Blog is Starting to Smell

Behind the scenes

The Portaloos are leaving! According to recent reports, the City Council plans to have the trusty units off our streets in a couple of months. And everyone seems to agree that that's good news.

Image source: www.shinyshinytv.com

Image source: www.shinyshinytv.com

Portaloos have been with us in Christchurch for so long, however, that they've started to inspire a kind of stubborn affection. Indeed we at Bunker Notes can reveal to you that Felicity's homage to the 'mist green' chemical toilet disposal units round the city was the most popular read on this blog the week before last.

So, amidst all the talk about the monuments and memorials that Christchurch may soon be wanting, we should not rule out the possible call for a major public sculpture commemorating the role of creative toilet solutions during these trying times. If that proves to be the case, Christchurch Art Gallery's (ahem) crack team of public art researchers has come up with two strong contenders.

Runner-up is the brilliant Los Angeles trouble-maker Paul McCarthy, whose immense inflatable sculpture Complex Shit would definitely keep things interesting in Hagley Park, echoing the shape of the inflatable Events Dome while delivering a chastening 'don't even think about it' to dog-walkers who aren't carrying plastic bags. It's worth noting that this sculpture took off in a high wind in Switzerland in 2008 and knocked down power lines before landing 200 metres away in the grounds of a children's home. That must have been traumatic for the kids, and I'm not sure the complex shit enjoyed it much either. This sculpture could be trouble in a nor'wester.

Paul McCarthy Complex Shit 2008. Image source: ARTINFO.com, Courtesy Zentrum Paul Klee

Paul McCarthy Complex Shit 2008. Image source: ARTINFO.com, Courtesy Zentrum Paul Klee

More expensive to run, but less likely to float off unpredictably, would be one of Wim Delvoye's Cloaca machines.

Wim Delvoye Cloaca Quattro 2004–5. Mixed media. Installed Casino Luxembourg. Image source: http://www.wimdelvoye.be/cloacafactory

Wim Delvoye Cloaca Quattro 2004–5. Mixed media. Installed Casino Luxembourg. Image source: http://www.wimdelvoye.be/cloacafactory

Precision-engineered devices which 'digest' real food in order to produce customised art-turds, Delvoye's machines looks strangely like the telecommunications unit currently parked in front of the Christchurch Art Gallery. Is there something the SCAPE Biennial has been keeping from us? If not, we suggest a local patron gets on to Delvoye's device as soon as possible. So to speak.