Berlin -- There is a word for the kind of art found at the private gallery of Motamedi, and it is not printable in this newspaper.
The polite term is "excrement," for that's exactly what this spectral man with the shaved head and King Tut beard has put on display -- more than a hundred contributions from various animals, the artist included.
Motamedi's art supplies also includes dead carp and rotting songbirds, and sometimes when he's on tour performing "action art" he'll eat a can of beef stew, then vomit on the floor in the outline of a cow.
Naturally, someone always asks, "Is it art?" and some seem at a loss for an answer. But for the cynic the most puzzling thing about Motamedi's work may be that people pay good money to see it -- $12 apiece at his gallery in Wuppertal, by appointment lTC only, while his on-the-road performances often play to packed houses, never mind the cover charge.
"It is a question of culture," says Motamedi (full name: S.M.R. Motamedi), sitting in his apartment in Berlin, his second home. "For me, it is unimaginable paying 100 Marks [about $60] just to see a play which will bore me to death. If someone wants to see my work, he has to overcome the disgust. If this is done, one can appreciate my work. This is not as easy as just going to the theater."
Not nearly. Some find his shows so difficult that they leave in the middle. Not that Motamedi, 32, cares a whit.
"It is not interesting to speak about the audience," he says. "Two years ago, I was The 'Perverted Persian' [according to one newspaper], and now I am celebrated as the big conceptual artist. But two years ago I made the same stuff. . . . I don't care if I am praised or destroyed. I have made performances when I was all by myself. In the last four weeks, I made 86,400 performances, because I was here for 86,400 seconds. Each gaze, each conversation, was a performance. I don't need the audience."
All of this sounds like the stuff of artistic purity, the very image of the iconoclast in his garret, worrying only about his creations, critics be damned.
Then Motamedi begins pawing through a pile of photocopied newspaper clippings, and his disavowal loses some steam. He seems to have saved everything that's been written about him, and with a hint of relish this emigre from Iran shows you the story that called him the "Perverted Persian" in bold 90-point type.
Later he re-shuffles and comes up with other negative assessments by puzzled critics, including the one who inevitably asked, "Ist Es Kunst?" ("Is It Art?")
As for the "art actions" he has performed without an audience -- such as the time he filled 34 empty parking spaces in Wuppertal with old wooden doors and sprinkled flour, a show little appreciated by local meter maids -- you can still catch some of these performances even now. They're among the scenes on the Motamedi videotape, available for the same cost as one of those bore-you-to-death plays -- 100 Marks ($60).
Well, OK. So he does sometimes think about audiences. In fact, when he first performed with two dead carp, he was downright disturbed by the audience reaction.
In that show, he comes onto the stage powdered white from head to toe, carrying the carp in a bucket of water. Eventually he tosses them onto the floor, then tries unsuccessfully to teach them to swim. Thereby establishing the central theme of "Only Heroes Can Swim."
"I thought I had done something wrong," Motamedi says of the show's debut.
The reason? Too many people liked it.
He has not been troubled by such worries over his current exhibit in Wuppertal.
"It is an exhibition of excretions and decomposition," Motamedi says. "It is a collection of food and animals. For me, the animals are action artists."
Their action is limited, however. They are dead.
"There are the chickens, which are dead now, and now there are two songbirds which see themselves as action artists. The birds are dead as well."
This kind of art can get a little smelly.
"I got used to it," he says. "I don't think that it stinks. I sleep there, too. It is a natural smell of decomposition. I have to live with it. For example, I detest the smell of Chanel, it makes me feel sick. It is a prejudice if one says decomposition stinks. It is a question of education or socialization."
Motamedi offers a private showing every four weeks, and last month about 30 showed up, some from hundreds of miles away, for a $12 look. He has already received applications for the next showing.
"It is in a big room and the people come and have coffee and discussions," he says. "It is very important to speak about the experience."
Local authorities and conservative politicians have not been among Motamedi's patrons, yet they've still managed some stern critiques.
Two years ago, when he was offering one of his more bizarre performances in Wuppertal, the authorities hauled him into court on a pornography charge. Police searched Motamedi's apartment, and a local clergyman who hadn't seen the show offered testimony based on newspaper accounts. The show was the fall of Babel all over again, the minister warned, and Wuppertal was headed for the fate of Soddom and Gomorrah.
Motamedi was exonerated. His patrons rejoiced.
He hasn't exactly grown rich from all this. He leads a simple life with few possessions, strolling quietly around a sparsely furnished apartment. Other than the receipts from shows and performances and the sales of paintings (his "earlier work," he says) he is supported mostly by friends and patrons.
Motamedi's training was a combination of formal art education and harsh, sometimes horrifying experience. He grew up in Tehran, joining the revolt against the Shah of Iran at age 17, but parted ways with the Islamic Revolution, which would doubtless disapprove of his work.
For two years, he served in the army in Iran's war against Iraq, where he says, "I had to learn to deal with dead bodies, decomposition, intolerance, victims, suppression, experiences I use in my work now."
As he speaks, three birds twitter behind him in a cage. Are they action artists of the future, he is asked?
Yes, he says. The same is true for some fish drifting in two aquariums. In fact, a couple of fish and birds that didn't survive his latest trek to Berlin are already being groomed for stardom. They're out in a sack on the apartment balcony.