Since the outset of his career, German creator Michael Badura (b. 1938) has dedicated his practice to scrutinizing the inner workings of imagery alongside the nuances of verbal, visual, and sociocultural perception. His methodology employs a variety of processes, actions, and compositions designed to decipher human experience and daily life, ultimately aiming to construct a narrative of our modern reality. This investigative spirit is grounded in ecological, anthropological, and biological contexts. A prime example is his 1967-1969 piece, *Wasser ist nicht Wasser – Wasserfarben* (a collection of mixed materials, glass, and wood, measuring roughly 100x150cm), which features myriad test tubes containing water combined with disparate substances, thereby transforming its original state and physical composition.
This “sampling” approach invites a meditation on the transition from purity to pollution, addressing the urgent contemporary concern regarding water as an essential human resource. This work is exhibited alongside an installation curated by the Shit Museum team, which interprets various pharmaceutical compounds derived from animal waste—a practice historically documented by Pliny the Elder in his first-century text, *Naturalis Historia*. The gallery space further displays a million-year-old fossilized coprolite and a terracotta votive representing human viscera (dating from the 3rd to 2nd century BC). Together, these disparate artifacts bridge the gaps between prehistory and history, art and chemistry, and the natural and cultural worlds.
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