Shitshow Marks Start of New Season

Now that the long weekend has passed, so has the calm before the storm that precedes the break of the new art season (though this premiere tends to get eclipsed by some overwrought runway show that traditionally gets far more inches in print). This heady orgy of installation art, acrylics, ego, and expectation is not unlike its distant cousin further uptown at the Tents. There are those opening receptions worth your while, and those you should dash from your list (and possibly replace with an impromptu fro-yo). Ever the idealist, I'd like to think the duds are far fewer than the gems. But alas, like the obligatory, ill-conceived mix of horizontal stripes and plaids, they still exist.

Luckily, the only stripes-and-plaids faux pas worth passing up (well, at least for now anyway) is “Shit” by Andres Serrano at Yvon Lambert. The show’s announcement initially had everyone up in arms, but then all sorts of things happened (mostly political and peripherally related to Tina Fey), and everyone forgot about Serrano. Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with shock art, and there’s nothing wrong with presenting human waste as art—but there’s something unsettling about rewarding one man for a body of work that’s been generating since the dawn of time. But as far as shitshows are concerned, swap this one in for a day of substitute teaching in East New York.