Taxidermia, Consumption and Art

György Pálfi’s Taxidermia presents us with a dizzying caricature of consumption and explorations of the abject that push the norms of acceptability yet always retain their unavoidable connection to politics, and thus shy away from seeming gratuitous. Indeed, it is impossible not to think of the politics of over-consumption and the exploration of consumption as a sport in the context of a country that was marred by under-nourishment and famine, particularly in the early years of Stalin’s rule. The film is fascinating in its approach to over-eating; though it critiques the practice through its exaggerated characters and nauseating depictions of the competitions and after effects, eating is also tied somewhat to a liberating impulse. Particularly in the construction of the father and mother’s blossoming relationship, these characters are unbound by social norms and consume unabashedly; food is drawn upon to explicate freedom – significantly, the mother talks of the “socialist paradise” that is Cuba, where “oranges drop from the trees”. Similarly, in the celebration of the soviet union’s anniversary, caviar is enlisted for a demonstration of the over-eaters’ ability; a food reserved for high class occasions and known for its scarcity is thus diminished to just another pile of fodder for over-consumption. Fidel’s appreciation for these competitions is also mentioned, and all these references amount to an intriguing relationship between wastefulness and socialism; in a society where theoretically equality reigns, a surplus is deemed acceptable only within the context of ‘entertainment’ or ‘sport’, so that over-consumption is moderated in a purposefully delineated framework. If we apply Marx’s outlining of commodity fetish to the film, food here has moved beyond its usefulness as a fuel for the body to a commodity that transcends its initial, base necessity and role in nourishment. It is no longer seen as a utility but rather as an ironic element for amusement.

What’s notable as well is how Pálfi does not allow the audience to distance itself from its own hypocrisies concerning consumption; the scene where a pig is graphically dismembered and its organs harvested emphasizes how divorced we are as consumers from the labor and processes of production. We are happy to consume our bacon without giving its origins a second thought, and the mechanics of our capitalist system that masks labor processes ensure that most of us never need face this reality.

This is taken to an extreme level in Taxidermia’s stomach-churning ending, which reduces a human body to a work of art made for intellectual consumption and careless contemplation. The gallery at the end highlights again the notion of being removed from the process of production, where consumption and personal satisfaction are privileged over the origins of the ‘product’. Here art itself is equated with consumption, where intellectualizing a corpse becomes acceptable within the parameters of high art. There are clear parallels with Damien Hirst’s work here, and a disturbing suggestion that anything can be packaged and displayed for consumption, including the human body. Again, a sense of wastefulness pervades the sequence, whereby a life has been given up for ‘entertainment’ and its value has been displaced onto a production/consumption system that has literally become overwhelming. This scene also complicates Adorno's distinctions between mass culture and 'high art', as here the discourses of elite, 'high' culture are directly tied to consumption; even the intestine-looking pretzels served to the guests point to this connection. Ultimately, consumption pervades every facet of our lives and over indulgence cannot be separated into an 'elite vs the masses' dichotomy.