Art is a rather beautiful yet inexplicable appreciation for emptiness, says I. And at certain points in time it is amazing how far people can go in the name of valuing art. I have personally witnessed the online sale of a rather simple and mundane painting consisting of a red arrow drawn on a white canvass which sold for aver $500 dollars. Looking back, this was a painting my grandma could have replicated and perfected even in her old shivery age.
But art is art and it takes some of the most unexpected forms. One of such is popular art, artist and art critic Etienne Dumont. Unlike many critics of such clothed in a suit and tie appreciating an age old fragile vase from the Ming dynasty, Dumont not only decided to appreciate art but decided to become an art by himself.
As if the human anatomy wasn’t art enough, Dumont has inked 100% of his body and has had silicon implants such as horns inserted in his forehead. It gets creepy further, he’s had big rings inserted in each earlobe and Plexiglas piercings through his lips and nose.
In 2009, Etienne Dumont, then 60years of age justified his reputation as not only the artist and the art critic but the art itself. He had his own photography exhibition in Geneva at the Krisal Gallery. Following his first tat in 1974, Dumont has become a gallery for tats and inspiration for piercings.