Decorated dog feces is apparently emerging as a new art form in Brooklyn -- and sparking a bit of a power struggle over who rightfully owns the peculiar medium.
The turf war began yesterday after Instagram user Tom Dixon spotted a number of gold glitter-covered dog turds adorning a sidewalk along Dekalb Avenue in Bushwick.
After Gothamist published the photo, a second artist going by the name Gold Poo NYC surfaced, insisting his embellished poo art has been hijacked.
"I was surprised at first," Gold Poo, whose own Instagram images of gold-covered poop (below) are months older than Dixon's, told Huff Post. "Seeing how I have been doing this for just under a year straight and have gotten little to no attention."
But the lack of publicity hasn't bothered Gold Poo, or as he calls himself, the "captain of this goldpoo train." In fact, the recent press has prompted him to jump on poop art's new attention for his own outreach purposes, even though Dixon's Instagram is definitely not his work: Gold Poo uses spray paint, not glitter, and wasn't working in the DeKalb Avenue area on the date Dixon snapped his photo.
"I thought maybe it was me and [Dixon] just thought it was glitter," Gold Poo said. "But after seeing the day it was posted and location, I knew it was someone else. So I figured if [websites] want to write about gold poo, I may as well reach out."
Gold Poo, who also has a number of non-feces related pieces, said he began decorating dog poo as a bit of gag that transformed itself into a "symbol."
"People are insanely superficial and really attracted to shiny things," he explained. "And nine times outta 10, it's all shit underneath anyways."
Gold Poo is hoping to learn the identity of the artist in Dixon's photo. Brooklyn, meanwhile, has become a place with dueling dog poop artists, though Gold Poo posits it's just the next wave of expression.
"Graffiti has already evolved beyond walls. Street art is a movement where we're not confined to galleries or canvas," Gold Poo said. "The goal is to get people to see things differently and to take notice of the world around them."