To Love It All

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that artists cannot make good art from, including such strange substances as bodily fluids and excrement, both animal and human. You may remember the controversy surrounding the paintings by Chris Ofili, the British artist whose trademark material is elephant dung. Bull's urine was used in the past to produce a particular yellow paint, famous for its warm, golden glow. Andy Warhol made a series of so-called 'piss paintings,' where he and his assistants literally urinated on canvas treated with copper; the resulting 'Oxidations' elevated a lowly process into high art. Anselm Kiefer, a celebrated German artist, deals with apocalyptic subjects and uses for his art everything from hay to semen...