Artist’s loo paper in study
Scientists to use items that shocked in 1974 to observe changes in Billy Apple’s gut
One of the most shocking exhibitions in the history of British art is now the focus of a new scientific study. When Kiwi artist Billy Apple unveiled his work Body Activities — consisting of tissues and cotton buds stained with excrement and other bodily fluids — at London’s Serpentine Gallery in 1974, authorities immediately ordered it be taken down.
But he kept all the original tissues and, more than 45 years later, researchers have found a new purpose for them, in the latest intriguing collaboration between the 80-year-old and top New Zealand scientists.
“Billy has provided us with fecal samples that are 46 years apart, and by looking at the bacteria from these, we can understand how Billy’s gut bacteria have changed,” said Dr Justin O’Sullivan, of the Auckland University-based Liggins Institute. “These types of samples are extremely rare.” Moved to New York in 1964 and spent the 1960s and 1970s heavily involved in pop art. His work is now held in museums and galleries around the world. Has had his entire genome sequenced and donated a cell line named after him to research.
In the study, being led by PhD student Thilini Jayasinghe, the team is using a method called “16S amplicon sequencing” which effectively takes copies and sequences regions of the bacterial DNA.
These are then used to search a database and identify the bacteria.
“It has a lot of similarity to the toll gate on the northern expressway — cars pass through, number plates are photographed, and then the numbers used to identify the individual cars from the database.”
O’Sullivan and his colleagues have been offering senior high school students an opportunity to perform this type of analysis on soil bacteria for the past six years. “More studies like this will help us understand how bacteria change us and contribute to non-communicable diseases.”
Apple was amused at the renewed interest in the work. “Who the hell keeps their tissues for 46 years unless it’s an art work?” he told the Herald.
“But for them, it’s a pretty special project, and I’m just thrilled to be able to work with them.”
Apple has a long history of collaborating with scientists and bridging the worlds of research and art.
In 1970, he collaborated on an installation, Laser Beam Wall, with renowned physicist and white light laser pioneer Dr Stanley Shapiro.
Four decades later, at the instigation of Dr Craig Hilton, Otago University-based NZ Genomics Ltd sequenced Apple’s entire genome.
Some of his personal genetic information is detailed in a diagram and printed on to canvas which the artist likens to a new type of self-portrait.
In 2008, in another project with Hilton, dubbed “The Immortalisation Of Billy Apple®”, cells were taken from his blood and scientifically altered using a virus so that they would keep regenerating forever.
The cell lines — formally named after Billy Apple® — are now held at University of Auckland’s School of Biological Sciences and the American Type Culture Collection, Virginia, a biological culture repository that aids research in areas such as cancer.
“It’s a curious thing for an artist — I’m in a collection in a cell bank, it’s just like one of my works being in the Tate Britain collection: it’s incredible.
“The body may go but the cells will live on.”
Works by Apple, who is represented by Auckland’s Starkwhite, will also be showcased as part of Queenstown Research Week — this year staged in Nelson — this week.