Shit Art

An unassuming farm town in the Midwest hasn't given up on art - they're simply re-defining it. Reporting from McAbe county.

McAbe county is a small farming town on the outskirts of Minneapolis that has resisted widespread attention since its founding in 1902. Known mostly for its crisp apple orchards and grassy flat fields, a new identity in McAbe has emerged in recent years but one that few outside the town are fully aware of.

The new identity relates very closely to artistic expression but not the kind that you would likely be familiar with. The substance of the thing, the art itself, is something more intimate and universal – feces.

Each fall in McAbe, locals are afforded the opportunity to enter an art expo contest with a generous first place award of $25,000. If that sounds like too steep an award for shit art, it’s probably because it is.

McAbe, in addition to its crisp apple orchards is also known for its poverty. The wealth in McAbe is “old money” – concentrated almost entirely inside a few rich farming families. Three fifths of the town’s populous lives pay cheque to pay cheque but despite the wealth inequality found in McAbe, the wealth does trickle down in some sense, given that the art contest and award money is funded by one of the old money family patriarchs.

The main organizer and funder of the project, Albert Donhew commented on the inspiration behind the expo: “We wanted to create something different. McAbe is different than any other place in America. People are also suffering here and we wanted to reclaim an artistic identity that wasn’t restrictive from a financial perspective. Traditional art is getting more and more expensive to fund. We have come up with a solution that works for our population.”

Mr Donhew isn’t without a point. McAbe is a place where the majority are poor. The top of mind issue is seldom political or in any way related to the culture wars being waged on the elitist coasts. Folks just try to help each other out if they can. And people here won’t know what an NFT or a blockchain is if you ask them about it. Insofar as the citizens of McAbe needed a cheap way to reinvent themselves – because let us be honest, predicting what will go viral or make you a millionaire is becoming harder and harder to do – Donhew delivered a very viable option.

The stipulations of the contest are actually simple – again a reflection of Donhew’s vision – that anyone can enter the contest. The entries must be all natural, sprayed with a fancy almost plastic like spray to neutralize sent, and must include at least one product of the local agricultural community.

And there are many – the orchard apples in McAbe are an obvious starting point for many contemplating entry into the contest. The county is known for its candy-like Honey Crisp and more bland and mushy Cortland apple varieties, the latter of which serve an important role in the county’s annual pie fair.

In addition to the apples, McAbe provides locals with an unlimited supply of corn, an undeniable heavyweight in this sort of art competition. Don’t fancy corn? No problem. Local farms offer an entire world of other produce given the longitude and latitude and seasonal tendencies of this unassuming place. Clementines, beets, blueberries, strawberries, tomatoes, beans, green bell peppers, and an entire civilization of seeds which classically seem never to be fully digested.

So, all this to say – McAbe’s finest and most courageous artistic wannabes have a fair starting palate from which to work. Imports are not banned from the competition and some entries obviously rely on less local varieties. Nuts are probably the most widely adopted go-to export for those aiming for a certain response to their art. As one entrant explained to me while I surveyed the opening day event for the expo: “Almonds changed the game a lot for me in recent years. My first entry was three years ago and not only did I not place, but I was also outside the top 50.” Indeed, almonds seemed to change the game for Boris – the pseudonym he insisted upon, given his aspirations to become a lawyer. Boris was right – last year he placed 14th overall.

Its important to know that entries have doubled year over year and only the top 20 are featured at the contest’s closing event, held in mid December. Last year, a total of 179 pieces were entered into the contest. Subtract the 12 who were found to have skirted the rules, or outright abused them with after the fact editing of their work, and the expo was left with 167 qualified entries left to judge.

The picture is not all sunshine and rainbows though, and the contest has not been without real casualties. During the production stage of one contest, new entrant Ellen fancied herself a food imposter contribution. The final product rested on her kitchen counter in a meatloaf tin. Embroidered with uneaten seeds, she had broken the mold, so to speak, in creating shit art that imitated food. Most of the entrants went for a theme far less familiar. Often, they seemed to have sculpted their anal products into eye catching and gravity defying ensembles. Not Ellen – her entry, in its fancy kitchenware, had the appearance of a dessert or maybe even real meatloaf. Unfortunately, her husband saw it this way too, and when she stepped out of the kitchen before completing the final touches, he became a bit too curious and unwittingly taste tested the sample.

Another contestant, Marjorie, first entered the expo three years ago. Her diet leading up to the production period – a predesignated three-day interval where pieces are accepted – consisted nearly entirely of corn, clementine peelings, and seeds. The product was a marvel to many including the judges.

Things weren’t always so bright and flashy for Marjorie though. Two years ago, the contest ended her up in hospital after she refused to defecate for five days. Passed on to her by a friend who’d once won second place before leaving McAbe for good, the technique is termed packing heat by those familiar with the contest and the various strategies artists have adopted.

Refusing to defecate does tend to have the intended effect if it’s done with skill. For example, a compact piece of art has the effect of projecting the undigested bits more, as if they are shooting out or even being pushed out by the central fecal load. Marjorie made the mistake of not hydrating, and found herself under the care of general surgeon at McAbe’s Ancaster State Hospital. Her bowels had circled around each other in one part, and became inflamed in another, creating a painful obstruction necessitating emergency surgical intervention. She wasn’t to be without her entry though, asking the surgeon to collect part of the sample from her large intestine. He did, and she combined it with a subsequent bowel movement to create something truly special.

While Marjorie ended up being okay, and while she met all the stipulations at the time, the rule book for the contest was changed following the episode. Guidelines and education around the need for hydration leading up to the production period were highlighted ad nauseum. Entrants engaging in packing heat also face more rigorous security and oversight, as the expo’s inspectors are not only in the bathroom during what is referred to as The Drop, but also in one of two stalls equipped with two way mirrors to disincentivize cheating.

While Donhew didn’t outright ban packing heat as a strategy, the entrants were to carefully engage in the practice going forward. Much like weight cutting in mixed martial arts, Donhew viewed packing heat as an imperfect but ultimately necessary part of the process. To his credit, he also covered the hospital bills for Marjorie as they totaled nearly $89,000 – too high a price for a 67-year-old widow living on $1350 a month.

The youngest entrant was another attraction this year. Fourteen-month-old Avery, together with his mother, entered just once before. According to Avery’s mother: “From the beginning, we felt that he may be able to enter before his second birthday. He had a brief phase of loose stools, but once they started to form, in combination with the entry of solids, we just knew something was different.”

The focus on loose or formed stools isn’t the thing that separates Avery’s entry however – it’s the color. An almost fluorescent yellow pile of mud, reminiscent of what you would expect baby shit to look like, it seems brutally unnatural and almost chemical in origin. Judges and inspectors complete an audit on Avery’s production period to ensure what they are judging is real, and that the rules ware followed. Everything checked out after the expo closely inspected the details and Avery debuted 4th place last year. His mother has high hopes for this year’s results - promising a surprise, one that she wouldn’t share, she laughed “we think we can win this year.”

Whatever does end up happening in McAbe this year, the spectacle is guaranteed to attract a large audience. Pre-sale ticket bookings sold out in under 12 hours. With a crowd of more than 13,000 expected over the course of the three-day expo, the event will have doubled in size in a single year. The local dining and hotel economy has seen a massive boom, joining a growing night club scene that offers contestants the break they deserve.

For his own part, Donhew has high hopes, too. In our final meeting, he suggests that the success of this year’s event may allow for a broadening of the expo’s scope. He’s hoping to export the event to neighboring counties and states. And despite all the nay-sayers and shit-talkers, it seems like he just might.