Rick Gibson

Rick Gibson (born 1951) is a Canadian sculptor and artist best known for his performance works.

Gibson was born in Montreal and studied psychology at the University of Victoria, where between 1973 and 1974 he drew weekly comics for the student newspaper.

After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974 he moved to Vancouver.

In 1976, he became the holography assistant for the American new media artist Al Razutis.

In 1978 he received Canadian government funding to build his own holography studio and study holographic special effects.

He exhibited the results of this work in Vancouver at the Helen Pitt Gallery in June 1978 and again in Victoria at the Open Space Gallery in June 1979.

In an attempt to solve a holographic problem, Gibson experimented with freeze-drying techniques.

He produced a series of sculptures that explored the ethics of using legally embalmed animals and humans as art supplies.

These sculptures were first exhibited at the Unit/Pitt Gallery in Vancouver, Canada in 1981.

He lived in London, England from 1983 to 1989.

The same works were later shown in November 1984 at the Cuts Gallery in London, UK.

During the 1984 exhibition of freeze-dried sculptures in London, Gibson was given two dehydrated human fetuses from an anatomy professor.

They were 10 weeks in development and had been dehydrated for 20 years.

Gibson re-hydrated both fetuses, freeze-dried them and attached them as earrings to a female mannequin head.

The sculpture was titled Human Earrings.

He did his first performance piece in Reading on 4 January 1986.

He walked on the High Street with a dog carrying a sign which said: "Wanted: legally preserved human limbs and human fetuses".

He tried to do the same piece again in Brighton on 25 January 1986, but he was arrested and convicted of behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace.

Subsequent performance pieces included standing in front of the Director of Public Prosecutions office in London with a live rat in front of his face, enabling people to kill live insects in Plymouth (where he was arrested but released without charge), and questioning the killing of slugs in Vancouver, Canada.

They were exhibited at the Young Unknowns Gallery in south London in December 1987.

On Thursday, 3 December 1987, the sculpture was seized by the Metropolitan Police.

Because of this incident, Gibson was expelled from Goldsmiths College on 21 December 1987, where he was studying post-graduate art, design and technology.

On 11 April 1988, Gibson and the gallery owner, Peter Sylveire, were formally charged with the common law offences of exhibiting a public nuisance and outraging public decency.

On 23 July 1988, Gibson ate the flesh of another person in public.

Because England does not have a specific law against cannibalism, he legally ate a canapé of donated human tonsils in Walthamstow High Street, London.

The trial started on Monday, 30 January 1989 at the Old Bailey in central London.

The judge was Brian Smedley, Michael Worsley was the prosecuting barrister, and Geoffrey Robertson and Helena Kennedy were the defence barristers.

On 6 February 1989, the charge of public nuisance was dismissed.

On Tuesday, 9 February 1989, the jury of 10 women and 2 men found Gibson and Sylveire guilty of outraging public decency.

Gibson was fined £500 and Sylveire was fined £300.

Immediately following the verdict, an appeal application was filed.

A year later, on 15 April 1989, he publicly ate a slice of human testicle.

When he tried to eat another slice of human testicle as "hors d'oeuvre" at the Pitt International Galleries in Vancouver on 14 July 1989, the police confiscated the testicle.

However, the charge of publicly exhibiting a disgusting object was dropped, and two months later he finally ate the piece of human testicle on the steps of the Vancouver court house.

However, on 10 July 1990, the Court of Appeal dismissed the case and upheld the earlier conviction.

There was considerable media commentary about this sculpture before, during, and after the trial.

The court case was also the subject of a one-hour British television programme.

Since the trial, writers such as John A. Walker and Eduardo Kac have continued to reflect on the sculpture and its social implications.

While living in London, Gibson met many performance artists at the Brixton Artists Collective.

He received a Master of Science degree in Interactive Art and Technology from Simon Fraser University, Surrey in 2004.