The Future Can Wait, but Brener can't

Alexander Brener, the Kazakh performance artist who has courted notoriety through his extreme scatological art acts, called in on emerging talent survey The Future Can Wait at London’s Old Truman Brewery on Tuesday evening.

The artist, renowned for this and other varieties of confronting performance art acts, relieved himself, in full view of visitors, on the floor of the gallery before using the resultant material to paint a smiley face on the wall.

The exhibition’s curators, from Ellis Rumley Projects, commented: “Our show The Future Can Wait promotes individual artistic expression and whilst defecating on our gallery floor isn’t something we encourage, we would be interested in talking to the individual concerned to listen to how he or she could justify this action as art.”

The Future Can Wait is a multi-disciplinary museum-scale survey show exhibiting the work of emerging artists, who work in painting, drawing, video, sculpture, performance and installation. Intended to complement London's Frieze Art Fair week, the show is privately funded and curated, and exists to offer an “alternative experience to the art fair routine”.

Brener had reportedly presented another impromptu work during a discussion on 'Extreme Curating' at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts on 24 September. The artist’s act was intended to express his opposition to the panel’s opinions.

Artist and filmmaker Stewart Home, who was on the panel and scheduled to deliver a talk at the discussion, says on his website that “some of those present had been so over-excited by... artist and audience member Alexander Brener getting up in front of everyone, pooping on his hand and then throwing his s**t into a glass of water belonging to Stuart Brisley (one of my fellow speakers), that proceeding as I'd originally intended was clearly pointless. I was the last panellist to speak, and after Brener's larking about I abandoned the s**t I'd prepared, and spoke instead about (his) s**t.

“I'd recognised Brener when he came into the room and nodded to him, and as soon as I'd clocked him I'd expected an 'intervention'".