In 1983, when I was dabbling in art criticism for several publications, Friedensreich Hundertwasser invited me to accompany him round his art exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.

I met him that first and only time when he was busy placing potted plants and bushes around the gallery - to offset the Barbican’s grey cemented interior.

“If you put any more plants in here,” I told him, “people will need a machete just to see your work!”

He shrugged, told me how much he hated cement, and asked me to give him a hand.

Later, after an hour or so walking around with him, discussing the lush flamboyant opulence of colour in his art and the possible influence of Johannes Itten’s The Art of Color, we came to the last exhibit: a large wooden barrel filled with earth on which he’d placed a toilet seat.

He called it his “Shittenpotten” and had added some steps for people to get up and have a look. There was a trowel and a spray next to the steps.

It was all part of Hundertwasser’s vision for improving the world – which included enlivening otherwise dull areas under motorways and other places with gardens for people to enjoy. He’d probably got the idea from seeing cows grazing on rooftops in Austria.

Hundertwasser was a unique Austrian artist who refused to abandon his humanity for the sake of aesthetics. His vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, architecture, postage stamps, clothing, flags and philosophy.

“Excuse me for asking, Herr Hundertwasser,” I said, “but how would you feel if somebody used the Shittenpotten? Would you consider this a positive or negative view of your ideas and work?”

He looked at me, smiled, and said, “It doesn’t matter. As long as they use the trowel and the spray.”

His Austrian PR representative – a dour Olga Kleb-lookalike (the female villain in the film ‘Goldfinger’ who’d tried to kick James Bond to death with the poisoned knives protruding from her shoes), added, “Ja! They would just do that wouldn’t they, the dirty English schwein.”

All of which came to me in a flashback the other day. And then I thought how Hundertwasser could have transformed several cruise ships that were, in the old days, not much better than a floating motel.

Which reminded me of Joe Farcus, the architect and designer for all of Carnival’s vessels for almost three decades. In 1999, he began designing interiors for Carnival Corporation’s Costa Cruises, winning critical acclaim for his work on Costa Atlantica, Costa Mediterranea and Costa Fortuna.

I interviewed Mr Farcus a few years ago. Judging by the results, he has long understood what cruise passengers want, and is not averse to adapting popular culture and history to create thematic areas on cruise ships.

Could he be the cruise industry’s answer to the other noted dreammaker, Steven Spielberg?

“In the end, I’m designing a ship that I would like to go on,” said Farcus. “Yes, I’m into popular culture and history as well as design, but it’s not all popular culture, it’s not all history, and some of it is just pure personal design. That’s a part of the mix and part of the vitality I’m seeking to create. The enemy of having a good time and an enjoyable experience on a ship is boredom. And, like Steven Spielberg, I want to get as far away from boredom as possible.

“If every room on the ship is beautiful but the same, within a day or two you’ve seen the whole ship. And no matter how beautiful it is, there’s no more excitement, no more discovery. A ship isn’t a museum, People aren’t coming to sit in a lounge chair and look at the beauty of the room on a continuous basis. Passengers are there to have a good time, and the interiors of the ship have to encourage, not deter, that feeling.”

I reckon Mr Farcus would have got on very well with Herr Hundertwasser. What a shame the Austrian visionary never designed a cruise ship.

www.hundertwasser.at
More about Joe Farcus

James Leavey

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