great blue heron excrement

(photographer unknown, lifted from Matthews the Younger blog.)

Yesterday, I went to the Whitney Museum of American Art to see the 2008 Biennial exhibition. The high point for me was Charles Long's beautiful albumen prints of great blue heron excrement and plaster and papier mache sculptural renditions of them. The sculptures are quite large and rather biomorphic, taking form as creatures who themselves might eat and excrete, while appearing as something that could plausibly have been excreted from a giant creature--the earth? Human civilization? The sculptures incorporate debris found at the Los Angeles River where the birds live, adding texture and dimension.