La Merde

La Merde is a personal anthology bringing together more than 200 images from art history, popular culture, and various other fields that engage with bodily material, abjection, and the politics of visibility. Developed as an extension of the eponymous project for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, the publication functions both as an archive and as an autonomous object. Spanning from the Middle Ages to the present, it traces how excrement has been depicted, mobilised, or aestheticised over time. The use of shit, whether as material or as symbol, has often served as a gesture of transgression, a way to test the limits of representation, to question systems of value, and to express forms of resistance or dissent. Produced in a compact format reminiscent of pocket Bibles, the book contrasts its discreet appearance with the explicitness of its content.