264 Gallons Of Sperm

Phillippe Meste needs your help. Otherwise he'll be spanking it for the next 20 years. The artist plans to fill one cubic meter with sperm--that's 264 gallons of men's best swimmers--to hypothetically impregnate millions of women. "Theoretically, it is a possible mission, but it's always my mental possibility," he says. The cube is kept just above freezing, so he admits it's not quite practical. So far, Meste is 263 gallons shy of his goal after soliciting donations at spermcube.org and freezing his own for "stock." It gets weirder. The Plexiglas structure was produced by Catholic school kids--yes, Catholic students--from Belgium.
Before you write off Meste as another perverted French artiste, consider other great exhibitionists like Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley, who've been praised as "Warhol's Children" by New York magazine and remain leaders of the L.A. and Manhattan art scenes. Both have either photographed their members or used sperm as ingredients in their work. Meste can best be described as obsessed with power. His website g-a-s-m.org covers 10 years of his art--all involving Gun, Action, Sex and Money--although the sex pieces are understandably the ones with the most press. In 2005, he invited people to "finalize" one of his mirrors spackled with sperm, and The New York Times had a field day: "Other reactions are more visceral, like…Philippe Meste's large, square mirror splattered with something white that is identified by the wall label as sperm."
That aside, his Sperm Cube has caught international attention. Americans, Brits and Spaniards have all made…contributions. Ultimately, he'll need 135,168 men to complete the project if they each give one sample. After the cube, he's considering retirement. "My next piece is me, preserved and frozen in a fighting position, presented in a showcase in a graveyard," Meste says.
OK, so maybe he's a little nuts.
from Esquire