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Santiago Sierra Anthropometric Modules made from Human Faeces by the People of Sulabh International, India (2007)
This work has been made possible by the collaboration of Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak and all people from Sulabh International in India.
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Daniel Edwards Suri’s Bronzed Baby Poop (2006)
Casting of the baby poop with a bronze finish and mounted on a base that includes a brass plate engraved with baby Suri’s name, comes at a time when Tom Cruise is increasingly known for his eccentricity.
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Christopher Madden Plastic bags arranged on path. Unspecified contents, June 2018
This is a piece of art that I created recently that’s inspired by frequent unpleasant encounters with dog poo bags while out on walks in the countryside. On one walk along a popular track up a mountain in Wales last year the poo bags were so frequent that they inspired me to conceive of the idea of a path lined with an avenue of poo bags.
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Gelatin Vorm – Fellows – Attitude (2018)
One is a light-brown swirl pointing upwards that, from one angle, looks like the poop emoji. The second is a gigantic, dark-almost-black turd snaking its way from one room to the next while another is a three-layer construction with a gap wide enough for someone to crawl through. The last one is a big pile — somewhat meringue like — similar to the great heap of dinosaur dung in Jurassic Park that prompts Jeff Goldblum’s befuddled character to utter: “That’s one big pile of shit.” They were made by the Vienna-based art collective Gelatin.
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Toto Untitled (2015)
At Tokyo’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, known as the Miraikan (literally “Future Museum”), children donning special shit-shaped caps line up to get flushed down the toilet.
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John Knuth Made in Los Angeles (2013)
Painter John Knuth of Los Angeles has created a series of paintings called “Made in Los Angeles,” where the verb “made” is used the way my grandmother used it, as in, “Did you make in the potty?” Knuth, who created the series for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, takes hundreds of thousands of maggots and places them in a screened-in box that has a canvas for a floor. The maggots hatch into flies, and Knuth feeds them a brew of water, sugar, and watercolor paint. The canvases are painted in neutral, monochromatic colors and the watercolors are bright reds, blues, and greens. For three months, Knuth lets the flies buzz happily around their enclosure, emitting little specks of color and creating inadvertent art (to them) as they go.
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Henry Taylor From Sugar to Shit (One tree per family) (2023)
mixed media
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John Miller I Stand, I Fall (2016)
Made with things such as buckets, Styrofoam, gauze tape, plywood, plaster, and modeling paste, the work was painted with acrylics to look like poop. “It was supposed to have an excremental or shit-like feel,” Miller informs. “At the time, it was a bit of a provocation. I think the U.S. audiences were much more puritanical than they are now. It was more just to invoke excrement as a reference.” But some spectators told him the work made them feel physically ill. Of course, it was embraced in Germany.
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Jerzy S. Kenar Sh*t Fountain (2009)
Crafted by internationally known religious sculpture artist Jerzy Kenar, Sh*t Fountain is a sculpture of a big turd that rests on a 3ft-high concrete column in Augusta, IL.
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Ivan Volkov Untitled, 2022
A Moscow artist faces criminal charges for creating an installation depicting what appears to be a huge piece of excrement in a puddle of urine on the snow in Marsovo Pole (Field of Mars), a landmark square in St Petersburg. Ivan Volkov and a friend were detained by police at a St Petersburg train station on 16 January when they were on their way back to Moscow. A police source told the official Tass news agency on Monday that a criminal case was launched against Volkov based on Article 244 of Russia’s criminal code (“Desecration of the bodies of the dead and their burial places). The minimum punishment is a fine of 40,000 rubles (around $520). The maximum is up to five years in prison if it is determined that there were political, ideological or certain other motives.
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Tom Friedman Feces on Pedestal (1992)
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The Jumbo Golden Poop Mosquito Coil Cover is made from durable, heat-resistant ceramic and sports a polished golden cover fashioned to resemble some ideal, dream dump no actual person could produce without the assistance of a spotter holding a GPS receiver. The cover is pierced with holes to allow the smoldering mosquito coil secreted within to waft its insecticidal incense.
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Nicolas Deshayes Cramps (2015)
The embryonic lumps that snake across the generic surface of Deshayes’ Cramps (2015), a diptych of vacuumformed polyurethane guts, are shrink-wrapped into a sickly sweet veneer. The material is a non-bio-degradable, seemingly anti-organic plastic, however it is processed from fossil fuels that have formed over many million years through the degeneration of prehistoric organisms. Vacuum-forming today serves as the standard process of industrial prototyping and a method for mechanical reproduction.
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Dieter Roth Rabbit-shit-rabbit (1972)
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Erik Patton Stool Sample (2018)
Erik Patton’s Stool Sample is a partial-room constructed environment that continues his interest in the body and its relation to materiality. As early as the Old Babylonian hymns, the anus has been recognized as a body portal. Where will yours take you?
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Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, came up with the process of producing an artificial steak after Tokyo Sewage asked if he could devise a way of using up the city’s excessive “sewage mud”. His methods? He extracts proteins from the waste, turns it red using food coloring and injects a boost of flavor with soy. His equipment? An exploder. Oh, and he adds “reaction enhancer.” The synthesized fecal meat’s vitals stats are: 63% protein, 25% carbs, 3% lipids and 9% minerals.
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Simon Fujiwara No Milk Today (2015)
On another floor are a series of paintings made by cows, created by their excrement, which colored canvases positioned behind them during lactation (“No Milk Today”). The works are hung lower than the standard hanging height of an artwork, placed at the average cow’s eye level, and are unified in shape, size, and khaki shades.
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Mauro Perucchetti My Shit is Better Than Yours (2012)
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Kiki Smith Tale (1992)
In the work, a female sculpture which is in a prostrate gesture is shown. It is naked and is crouching on all fours while defecating a long, snakelike turd onto the floor. Moreover, There is full of dirt on her body, especially on her bottom.
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Bruce Nauman Shit and Die, 1985
Drypoint on paper
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Wim Delvoye Cloaca (2000-2007)
Designed by Belgium artist Wim Delvoye and first exhibited in 2000 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, the machine was fed twice a day. After the machine is “fed,” the food is ground up. Digestive juices (acid, etc.) are added and, after a spell, the machine pushes out a nice (somewhat solid) doodie.
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Mike Bouchet The Zurich Load (2016)
Bouchet’s piece saw eighty tonnes of human excrement packed into a series of large brown bricks spread out to cover an area of 79 x 840 x 3,040 centimetres at Lowenbraukunst, a converted brewery on the banks of the Limmat river that was home to the majority of Manifesta’s offerings. The ‘load’ had been mixed with cement, lime and pigment, and there was a notice near the entrance stating that the sludge had been made safe for public presentation. My visit occurred about eight weeks into Manifesta, and thus the worst of the smell had dissipated – I was told by a local, however, that residents in the neighbourhood complained vehemently when the piece was installed and the stench was somewhat riper. Now it was, surprisingly, not overpowering and more like the smell of manure on a farm than human sewage. Also striking was the dryness, with the slabs resembling peat briquettes used for fuel. The fact the bricks were immaculately laid out in perfect order seemed a nod to Zurich’s glorification of neatness and symmetry.
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Andres Serrano Shit Series (2007)
Yvon Lambert New York is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by American artist Andres Serrano. The exhibition titled “SHIT” features new large scale photographs and will be accompanied by a full color catalogue with an essay by Hélène Cixous.
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Tala Madani Rear Projection: Soft (2013)
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Google CEO Eric Schmidt, famous for weirdly off-kilter mockery of the privacy his company exploits for its billions, has been immortalized in shit. Artist Katsu selected “Eric Shit” as the second in his series of portraits created using his own excrement. The first was of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
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Jaan Toomik May 15 – June 1, 1992 (1992)
A renowned and controversial installation by Jaan Toomik consisting of several jars of the artist’s own excrement is being bought by the Tartu Art Museum. Now Estonia’s most recognized contemporary artist on the international circuit, Toomik caused a stir two decades ago with his work “May 15 – June 1, 1992,” which includes a “menu” of what he ate along with each day’s output for the period.
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Jock Mooney Vom Shit Dog (2010)
plastic modelling compound, enamel paint
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Dan Colen Birdshit Paintings (2007)
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Zhu Cheng, one of China’s most famous and talented sculptors, has helped nine of his art students create a replica of Venus de Milo out of excrement. As you can see in the photo, the excrement-made Venus de Milo is encased in a transparent box to protect it and make sure that the smell of crap doesn’t drive everyone away from the exhibit at the Henan Art Museum in Zhengzhou city, China. The statue was purchased by a Swiss art collector for 300,000 yuan ($45,113).
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In Toronto, a city crammed full of fine restaurants, famous chefs and innovative dining ventures, it would be difficult for anyone to create a new fad. But one George Brown College graduate is hoping her “Poop Café Dessert Bar” will cause the next big stink. Opening mid-August in Koreatown, Lien Nguyen’s cafe will offer an all-brown menu, in the shape of human stools. “I’m trying to make poop cute,” Ms Nguyen explained to the Toronto Star. She said she first discovered the concept when she was visiting her mother in Taiwan a few years ago. “We checked out a toilet-themed restaurant and I just loved it,” she said. “It’s funny to put food and poop together; it’s a great comparison. It stayed in my mind for a long time. As soon as I finished school, I said, ‘OK, I’m going to bring the restaurant to Toronto.’”
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Ian Haig Excelsior 3000 – bowel technology project (2001)
Excelsior 3000 looks to the toilet as an amalgam of bodily and machine interface, and the fantasy of a toilet that functions as a medical device in assisting ones bowel movements. The work seeks to redefine the relationship of the human body and technology to the bowel and amplify the notion of the bowel and toilet as everyday ‘invisible’ interfaces.
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Mike Kelley and Bob Flanagan MORE LOVE THAN CAN EVER BE REPAID (1991)
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White Male Artist (AKA Cassils) $HT Coin: After Banksy, 2021
‘Excrement after eating the diet of Banksy for one day. Signed, numbered and dated “White Male Artist – July 28, 2021”.
‘Medium: Tin can, printed paper and excrement (strawberry doughnuts, iced coffee, almond milk, margherita pizza with torn basil, avocado and corn salad with blackberry dressing, robata corn on the cob with salted chili and lime, sorbet, baby spinach risotto with Amalfi lemon zest, bread pudding).’
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p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Safe, quick trip eastward today if you’re not already there or almost. Say hi to Kyler for me. Find NYC’s pastry filling and dig in. ** Dominik, Hi!!! The script is going well. I’m working on it obsessively morning to night right now, and that’s usually a good omen. If it rains for more than a couple of hours here, the streets flood. In LA, the streets flood if it rains at all. I happily assign love the task of washing my dishes, thank you. Love taking any of the dumps up above that your little heart desires, G. ** Steeqhen, I have peculiarly high tolerance for the alleged obnoxiousness of school kids, at least when they’re French. Well, the less Rimbaudian the better I guess, as long as it has a whiff of him and doesn’t get too slam poetry-esque. Doesn’t seem like that’s a worry with you. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Meth Head’ seems quite hard to see, but, if you find it, pass along the hiding place. ** Steve, Hi. Mm, I have no doubt that Haas would have been an excellent father, but John Williams, who plays the part, is amazing and kind of impossible to beat. I think if we were ever to work with a known actor, we would create a character that either acknowledges that or finds some way to erase it. You’re not whining, no worries. Were you able to relax either via the intended target or otherwise? ** Carsten, Hi. My first couple of poetry books were self-published. Honestly, I’ve never encountered or heard of a publisher that won’t publish work if it’s been published in an online (or print) magazine or blog or wherever. That doesn’t seem true to me. Well, you might be overlooking all the work it takes to get a self-published book’s existence known to people and making the book seem appealing to people who don’t already know and like your work, and then, assuming the book is for sale, the work of handling the purchasing and getting it to the people who buy it. I’ve never had very much problem at all with publishers in terms of getting the books to look how I want except sometimes the cover image ends up being something of a compromise. Yeah, those are the downsides of self-publishing. Me, I would try some publishers first before you choose to put it out yourself. ** Justin D, Hi. Well, ‘RT’ is going to play in San Francisco soonish, but I can’t announce the specifics for about another week. I don’t think there are any Northwest festival submissions, but I need to ask our producer because he’s submitting the film places on his own. We want to show it up there in Portland and/or Seattle or elsewhere if there is a way. Congrats on being post-mortgage! I’ve never owned anywhere I lived, but that sounds like a dreamy breakthrough. There have been things in our films that were inspired by songs or particular music. Or I guess I mean scenes in the films that wouldn’t have come about otherwise. There are two scenes in ‘PGL’ that were built to accommodate two pieces of music — Destroyer’s ‘Don’t Become the Thing You Hated’ and Thomas Brinkmann’s ‘PSA’ — that we wanted to do something with before we even started writing the script. ** HaRpEr, Hm, maybe I’ll try seeing my cloud brain can output language pre-caffeine although I suspect I would just scribble the equivalent of ‘uh…’. ‘Providence’ influenced ‘The Marbled Swarm’ — the whole multi-layered meta fiction within a fiction thing, and the tone too in a way. ‘Last Days’ is a favorite film of Zac’s. I like it. It’s in the era of Gus Van Sant’s films that interest me. I really don’t like ‘Elephant’ though. Yeah, I think Michael Pitt was just arrested for sexual abuse, like, yesterday. I met him once through Gus years ago. He seemed like an arrogant jerk, I’m sorry to say. ** Darbz 🕷️, Hi. Lukas Haas gives a little speech towards the end of ‘Mars Attacks!’ that’s one of my favorite film moments ever. An elevated porch that turns a building into a castle is even more beautiful, gosh. Tens days, cool, tick tick tick … NYC has lots of wonderful museums. You’ll have no problem finding things like that to wander through. Great, I’ll go check my email. I haven’t checked it yet this morning. Thank you! And I’m happy to get to see you! What a boring brained doctor. Little guys are the coolest. It’s great to look down at something/ someone you respect. I don’t know why. It keeps you on your toes, and the best people always do. I hope your day was worthy of you. ** julian, Hi! Needless to say, choosing violence as a theme is something I seem to be drawn to do too. I’m drawn to things that seem to need to be put into words to be fully visible or something. Your second book sounds very interesting, of course. My fiction certainly got a million times better with age. I decided I wanted to write novels when I was 15, and I didn’t end up thinking my fiction was anywhere good enough for so long that I didn’t publish my first novel until I was in my 30s, but I worked hard on it the whole time in between. That it took so long speaks to how talentless I was at fiction when I decided I wanted to conquer it. So, yeah, give yourself as much time as you need. Oh, interesting. I guess in terms of being especially interested in child actors, I feel like they’re less self-conscious and ready to dare themselves to try things. Zac and I worked with three very young people in our new film, all non-actors, and they were just incredible. No matter what they did, even if it was awkward or seemed kind of forced or something, it was always really pure and beautiful in some way. So I guess that’s why? In terms of my interest in teen idols in my early books, I think a lot of that came from the fact that I was close with a guy who became a very famous teen idol during the time we were close, so I saw how he constructed himself into what he and his managers decided would be the ‘ideal, adorable, sexy teen’ for his teen idol persona, and I was fascinated by how that worked on him and on the fans who kind of worshipped the constructed version of him. I think that being on the inside of the teen idol thing in that sense is what made me interested in exploring that, if that makes sense? ** catachrestic, Hi. ‘Johns’ is not a good film, but Lukas Haas is wonderful and dreamy in it, yes. I actually interviewed him for Spin Magazine while he was making ‘Johns’, and he was extremely cool, and I think he actually might be willing to be in a strange film like ours if we caught him in the right mood. So glad you liked ‘Sure Fire’! That period of Jost’s films is very good. ‘Last Chants for a Slow Dance’ is great too, for instance. Self-criticism is almost always a lie, right? It sounds weird, but one is almost always the least qualified to criticise oneself accurately. Or so I think. ** Okay. Obviously, today’s post is the sequel to an earlier post of the same name and thematic. See you tomorrow.
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