Tastes like chicken? Britain’s Channel 4 is defending a show in which Chinese performance artist Zhu Yu appears to nosh on a dead baby, describing it a “thought-provoking film about extreme art in China.” News excerpt:
“[In the] documentary… [he] shows off photographs of himself washing a dead stillborn baby in a sink and putting its dismembered parts in his mouth. Politicians and media critics have condemned the plans but the Broadcasting Standards Commission said it could not address a program before it was shown.
Zhu is also shown having a piece of his own body grafted onto a pig. He describes his work as expressing his Christian faith, saying: ‘Jesus is always related to death, blood, wounds, etc.'”
This older Taipei Times article covers previous works by Mr. Yu Zhu (Thanks, Hutch!), including the smash hit shows Maneater and Canned human brains: “Zhu admitted that the meat obtained from the bodies tasted bad, and said he had vomited several times while eating it. However, he said, he had to do so ‘for art’s sake.’ ” Here is more background on the pig-skin-graft performance art piece, a snapshot of which is shown at left.