Giant dog turd lays waste to Swiss museum

August 12th, 2008, 4:39 pm · 2 Comments · posted by Richard Chang

Paul McCarthy’s “Fake Sh*t” (1982), made of cast aluminum and enamel paint, is on view at the Laguna Art Museum. Another feces-related sculpture by McCarthy caused major damage in Switzerland.

A giant, inflatable dog poop created by Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy got carried away in the wind, brought down a power line and smashed a window of a children’s home in Berne, Switzerland.

The dog turd was part of an exhibition titled “East of Eden: A Garden Show” at the Paul Klee Centre (also known as the Zentrum Paul Klee). McCarthy’s piece was called “Complex Sh*t,” and is the size of a house. It reportedly had a safety system that was supposed to deflate the turd in bad weather, but the system didn’t work when a sudden gust carred it from its moorings and deposited it, after it wreaked some serious havoc, 200 meters away on the grounds of the children’s home. The accident occurred July 31, but wasn’t reported until yesterday, according to the British Guardian Web site.

McCarthy is a well-known performance and conceptual artist. He has taught art at UCLA since 1982. He’s known for debunking the myth of the heroic artist and for conducting some weird performance pieces with ketchup, blood and feces.

McCarthy’s sculptural work, “Fake Sh*t” (1982), is currently on view at the Laguna Art Museum as part of the exhibition, “In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor.”

“Fake Sh*t” is pictured in all its glory above.

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