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Dear Readers,

Did you know that shit, real shit, like excrement, feces, good ol' defecation, is now a vogue subject for artists? It was butt plugs last season, but now it's shit. I noticed all the shit ads in October's Adforum — at least three artists were using shit in their work. Has art gone down the toilet? Or is it a metaphor for our country, the state of the world, that everything's turning to shit?

Or is it just bullshit? Well, this issue, we decided to have no bullshit, and cover art and artists that don't take any shit. This election season we wanted to get past all the campaigns and delve into the politics that surround us every day. All the normal politics, like sexism, feminism, racism, the crimes of our government. How do artists deal with these subjects, if at all?

So, it's back to basics, folks. I've been wanting to write about race and its place in art for a long time. Last winter I went to a seminar at the Getty on the African American avant-garde. I thought that would be a good place to start my research on race. I recognized performance/video artist Ulysses Jenkins on stage. The panel was interesting and the other speakers were compelling. Most of the work shown was done in the '70s and had that dated feel to it, but something seemed very real to me. So, in that sense, it wasn't dated at all — it felt advanced in a way. Even fresh. I walked away that night vowing to keep an eye on African American art and try to be more inclusive in our editorial content. So I took the opportunity to interview Jenkins, and boy, did I get an earful. This artist is fascinating on many levels, and his story is worth hearing.

And I hope you all got a chance to see Kerry James Marshall's work while it was up in Culver City. What a great show, and political as hell. And then I discovered the work of our cover artist, Jeff Sonhouse, who works out of New York. His art is explosive, and I mean that literally — check out our cover, those are real matchsticks for the hair.

I'm especially proud and honored to have Barbara Kruger for our Guest Lecture. Her work has always been political, and look how relevant it is today. She stated in an e-mail how sad it was to have to admit that. In a world filled with racism, poverty and right-wing Neanderthals wanting to turn back the clock on civil rights and humanity, does it really make sense to be making art that doesn't address these things? Of course, not all art has to be political. But isn't it time to stand up and not buy the bullshit a lot of artists are putting out there? Read our Field Report from El Salvador by Jason Flores-Williams. He knew he needed a dose of reality, and he got it. Maybe the art world in general could use it, too.

—Tulsa Kinney