Breast milk taste event fails to rile philistines

Summer must be in the air, because widespread coverage of the Lactation Station Breast Milk Bar hasn’t generated the sort of froth that such performance art traditionally depends on. A story on the CP wire explained how the pasteurized and culture tested by-product of six women would be available for tasting at the OCAD Professional Gallery on July 13 – while noting that bartender Jess Dobkin scored a $9,000 Canada Council grant for her efforts. But when Conservative MPs were grilled for comment, even Jason Kenney kept his foot away from his mouth: “Personally I think we should be funding cultural endeavours that actually draw an audience, that people are actually interested in.” The conclusion is that the era of outrage directed at federally funded projects like the dress made out of meat, the unwatchable porn parody flick Bubbles Galore and the masturbating Mexican may be over; indignation over community standards have been superseded by online access to every fetish, which means the the most offensive thing a performance artist can do is seem boring to their potential critics. While the taxpayer funding provides grist for grumpy commenters at Small Dead Animals and Free Republic, if a place called Lactation Station was selling pumps to nursing moms in Salt Lake City dating back to 1989, the provocation level for this stunt seems limited, even with the invitation for strangers to get a taste. Nonetheless, the attention has surpassed the effect of Dobkin’s previous projects, most of which concern perverted puppets, items being planted in assorted orifices and desperate yelps for attention – also, due to her preoccupation with getting hitched to fire hydrants, lamp posts and street signs, part of a commentary on same-sex marriage remaining unlawful in her previous home of New York City, it seems Dobkin had no choice but to approach her own motherhood as a solitary task. Lactation Station is just the opening salvo of Five Holes: Matters of Taste, an annual series that will also feature a woman having her body treated in a style meant to evoke the preparation of Kobe beef, apartment building models made from mouth freshening strips placed on the tongues of Regent Park residents, and a live remake of the movie Liquid Sky, set in late-’80s Toronto, a/k/a “a period of pacifying and distressing self-absorption”.