It all starts with an article titled, It's More Disgusting Than You Have Heard, October 5th, 1999.

The author of this article, James P. Pinkerton writes, I'm here at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York for the opening of

sensation, the show with the elephant-dung Madonna and the cut-up cows. But animal poop, animals in

pieces and politicians, pro and

con, aren't the half of it. A pair of quasi-child pornographers are on the loose too, and nobody

other than the folks giving them money seems to notice. But to get to the show, I have to get through

the crowd. Rina Dach, from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or Pita, is standing out on the sidewalk. She's wearing a black t-shirt with meat is murder hand-painted in red. I'm all for free speech, she declares, but I draw the line at cruelty. Animals are a work of art by themselves. A little further down, Eastern Parkway is Darrell Morgan. He's holding aloft an icon, the medievally beautiful Black Madonna of Cheshawah.

I'm here to defend the Blessed Mother, he says simply.

Then there's Robert Letterman, who has art of his own.

Enraged by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's decision to suspend city funding for the museum,

he holds aloft two signs.

Julie Anis, features a character of the mayor, he holds aloft two signs. Julie Anis,

features a character of the mare with a piece of plastic novelty poop glued onto his forehead.

Fuliani depicts him as a one-man insane clown posse.

At the exhibit, one of the first pieces I see is The Holy Virgin Mary by Chris Offley.

The elephant dung angle, it turns out, has been overplayed. Only one turd is

actually on the portrait, although there are two more at the base, one labeled Virgin, and the other

Mary. But it's clear that Ophilly has a thing for excrement without regard to race or religion.

Another one of his works on display features the names of such black superstars as James

Brown and Diana Ross neatly scripted

on turds of their own. But what's offensive about the merry piece are the little cutouts of

women's beehines plastered all over the canvas. From a distance, they look like butterflies. But

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