Shitty Art

Santiago Sierra, an artist whose works make use of pollution and toxic materials, has a new show featuring megaliths of human excrement


Elena Crippa, the curator of the London gallery displaying the works, said Sierra’s intention is to confront audiences with the horror faced by scavengers, the so-called untouchables who traditionally clean private toilets and outhouses in India.

The Chicago Sun Times comments:

Art from excrement has a long pedigree. In 1961, Italian Piero Manzoni produced 90 cans of ‘‘Artist’s (Poo),’’ each labeled as containing one ounce of ‘‘freshly preserved’’ material. In 1999, British artist Chris Ofili’s rendition of the Virgin Mary on a canvas spattered with elephant dung brought protest when it went on display with other sensational works at The Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York.

Sierra’s work is on a different scale. His 21 dark, crackled (and odorless) monuments are lined up like headstones. Although their power seems muted in the gallery’s harsh white space, visitors interviewed still seemed impressed, if not exactly shocked, by his choice of material.

The Poverty Business

Everyone knows about the subprime mortgage breakdown.

What you may not know, because it is not on the front pages of the daily newspapers, is that the subprime mortgage industry is only a small part of the subprime lending business. An comprehensive article in Business Week examines this industry in detail.

The take-away:

Poor people are not suckers for credit risks they cannot afford. They are . . . well poor and hence vulnerable.

A single Mom who applies for a lousy eldercare job for $15K a year needs a car. No car, no interview. So she has to pay exorbitant interest rates in the subprime used car market.

Same for a disabled guy eking out a living working at home with a computer. The machine crashes and he needs another one right away. But he has no cash. He knows he will pay twice as much buying one on credit from a subprime electronics firm, but no one else will extend credit.

The poor don't necessarily need credit counseling. And laws demanding full disclosure of interest rates and total costs go only so far.

The poor need access to micro credit at fair rates. Otherwise the business of poverty, gouging the poor with usurious rates, will continue to flourish and the poor will get deeper and deeper into debt.