‘YOUR WORK IS SHIT.’

I figure I should get this out, so to speak, before I lose the opportunity to claim it as original — if, in fact, it is original, which I seriously doubt.

Not being a serious artist, I wouldn’t dare undertake this, but it’s a serious art project that pretty much anyone could do. Especially anyone with a Polaroid instant camera.

The project:

Find a wide open exhibition space, preferably something industrial that has a nearly endless expanse of wall. Every time you make a bowel movement, take a picture of it. Take the Polaroids, carefully label them with date, time and whatever other information you feel is appropriate and adhere them to the wall. This should go on for at least a year, or until the wall is full. Affix the images in chronological order at first, but let the project evolve by its own, internal logic. It may stay strictly chronological. My guess is that eventually patterns will suggest themselves, about the artist’s health as well as about the project’s aesthetic possibilities: color, texture and so on.

This is not just crudity for the sake of crudity. The project could show all sorts of interesting things and even be a valuable tool for diagnosis. From a distance, the flow and range of colors should be intriguing and possibly even beautiful. Up close, obviously, is another story.

I conceived of this idea as fiction, with an artist only reluctantly revealing his work to a date. At the end of the revelation, scanning a factory’s width of small, square patches of filmic yellow and brown, she tells him wryly that “Your work is shit.”

For an idea of how objectionable this kind of project can be, consider Rate My Poo, which is almost like a “hot or not” Web site for bowel movements. Dana advises you not to look at all. I didn’t get beyond the home page, just long enough to bookmark it for this posting.

I would consider looking further if someone can convince me it’s art.