Art has the power to give voice to the voiceless, and few among us have struggled to find a place in society more than Shitman has. Fortunately, Italian artist Laurina Paperina explores the existential plight of her own sociopathic anthropomorphic cartoon feces in her video piece, "Shitman and the End of the World."
The video (which can be watched above) is part of her work on display at San Francisco gallery Fouladi Projects' booth in the Miami Project fair. As the sounds of an animated Paperina defiantly shitting the antichrist into a public toilet blasted through the Midtown tent, gallery owner A. Holly Fouladi shrugged aside Cultist's offer to use our headphones.
"It's only three minutes," she says of the unlooped video that fair attendees must request to have played. "It's an art fair. At some fairs, you wouldn't believe the things you have to hear in the other booths for five days straight. Just moaning and screams. This is nothing."
Laurina Paperina is probably one of the few artists at this year's fairs to make the trip from DuckLand. This, split with Trento, Italy, is where Paperina (Italian for "Little Duck") claims to spend most of her time. Though she features few ducks in her work, she does work with images of emotionally-complicated grizzly-on-panda sex and zipper-crazed artist Jim Lambie vomiting a rainbow.
She also revises classic LP covers to incorporate her characters, all of which are rendered in bright, cheery colors that belie their twisted menace. But most of all, Paperina's work is a hell of a lot of fun.
Paperina's personal website is laurinapaperina.com and Fouladi Projects can be found at fouladiprojects.com.
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