![what-I-do-as-an-artist](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/what-I-do-as-an-artist.jpg)
The cartoon is a wry commentary on some modernist performances. Why have so many modernists and postmodernists been pre-occupied with urine and feces? If art is about expressing oneself, what kind of self are such artists expressing? Or if art is a window into the artist’s soul, what kind of souls are being exposed here?
Marcel Duchamp:
!["Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp (1917)](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/duchamp_fountaine.jpg)
Demuth:
![Demuth-Three-Sailors-1930](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Demuth-Three-Sailors-1930-250x223.jpg)
Warhol:
![Warhol-piss_painting_1961](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Warhol-piss_painting_1961.jpg)
Mapplethorpe:
![Mapplethorpe-Jim-Tom](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Mapplethorpe-Jim-Tom-248x250.jpg)
Serrano:
![Piss_Christ_Serrano_Andres_1987](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Piss_Christ_Serrano_Andres_1987.jpg)
Manzoni:
!["Artist's Shit" by Piero Manzoni (1961)](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Manzoni-Artists-Shit.jpg)
My explanation: “From Modern to Postmodern: Why Art Became Ugly” (video lecture and later text publication).