The Absolute Mixture - Shit Art Positive

The Absolute Mixture: Shit Art Positive is the first book-length study devoted to the scatological in art and breaks substantial new ground. It analyses excremental art as an extension of the avant-garde project of dismantling the separation between art and life. It is introduced by a survey from medieval times; the main focus, however, is on twentieth-century and contemporary art. The Absolute Mixture is organised chronologically but also by themes; numerous individual artists and their works are also considered at length. The narrative is shaped by multiple interweaving ‘excremental discourses’, including (but not limited to) disgust theory (beginning in eighteenth-century Germany); Freudian-Lacanian-Kristevan philosophy-cum-psychoanalysis; gestures of rebellion from Diogenes to Sloterdijk’s kynicism; and contemporary notions of ecologically-sound production and recycling. The text is accompanied by 200 illustrations.