Artnose Artists

 Yuk Foo and Fuk Yoo 

Born Beijing, Studied Goldsmiths College, London, 1990-94.

 921 Fart Jars, 2000 (detail). Glass jars, farts.

Identical Chinese twins, Yuk Foo and Fuk Yoo, (née Yuk and Fuk Foo) have carved a unique place for themselves within the pantheon of feminist artists. Combining performance with more traditional forms of studio-based work, their activities defy conventional analysis, but everything they do aims to challenge "the pervasive phallic power of corporate culture". 

Since settling in London in the mid-eighties, Yuk and Fuk have become celebrated more for what they have not done than for recognisable works or events. Controversy is important to them. Their most celebrated work to date - 921 Fart Jars - which became a succés de scandale when shown at the Venice Biennale, comprises 921 glass jars - one for every day they spent at art school. The work is intended as a critical response to Piero Manzoni's infamous tin of his own excrement, Merda d'artista, of 1961. 

"The jars, each of which contain our own farts, captured in perpetuity in glass jars, is an ironic comment on the excessive material attention afforded to the empty heroic gestures of male-dominated modernism," explains Fuk. "Furthermore, unlike the millions of women's organs, ensnared within the aggressive male-dominated space of the 19th century laboratory, rendered anonymous and subjected to the scopophilic regimes of later onlookers, our farts are neither present nor absent, but they are invisible, thereby foreclosing the hegemony of the male gaze." (What's she on about? - Ed)

The jars, each hermetically sealed, signed, numbered and labelled, are issued in a limited edition of 200 and are available at £230,000 apiece. The entire set can be ordered for £1,650,000.

Artnose Artists - Quick Links

  Yuk Foo & Fuk Yoo
  Wim Waals
  Euan Mee
  Pixel Popadopoulos
  Diego Vasquez
  Juan Peccadiño (The Barber of Solihull)
  Mimmo Gulbenkian

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