Andres Serrano's 'Shit' Exhibition at Yvon Lambert

Andres Serrano's exhibition 'Shit' was held at Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris (September 12–October 11, 2008) and New York (September 4–October 4, 2008). The Paris show featured 66 works, while New York had 16, with different installations: serialized in France and monumentalized in America. In New York, the exhibition was preceded by a promotional campaign using stickers and posters hinting at the theme. Serrano collected animal feces from zoos in New York and Ecuador, as well as from a priest, his mother, and his therapist of twenty years, but not his father. He photographed the excrement at a distance, manipulating scale to a uniform size and using colorful backdrops. The works include titles like 'Bullshit' and reference vanitas through details like leaves, feathers, and flies. The exhibition was accompanied by an essay by Hélène Cixous, linking Serrano to Joyce and the Torah. Serrano's earlier work 'Piss Christ' (1987) is contextualized, noting that the controversy then was partly due to public funding. The review by Frédérique Joseph-Lowery appeared in art press no. 351 (December 2008).