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Tom Friedman Untitled (toilet paper), 1990
‘A roll of toilet paper, rerolled by hand without its cardboard core.’
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Yuuki Yuki For your own good, 2019–2020
‘For your own good has a multilayered structure in which a huge stuffed figure holds a public toilet. Made by Yu-ki, it has its roots in the artist’s own beloved doll, which her mother named “Sanko-chan my 3rd Daughter.” The toilet’s interior is covered with BL imagery (“boys’ love,” manga depicting adolescent male same-sex romance primarily targeted at women).’
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Claes Oldenburg Toilet – Hard Model, 1966
Oil, varnish and felt pen on corrugated cardboard and wooden construction, wooden plate.
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EOOS The Toilet That Dreams of Saving the World, 2019
‘EOOS aimed to build a toilet that could perform urine-feces separation, sending the liquid waste into its own storage and treatment system. The solution was a radically simple one—a urine trap, wherein urine hits a gently-angled pan at the front of the toilet, then trickles into a small opening inside the base. Urine—and only urine—enters the trap thanks to the Teapot Effect: Faster-moving flush water (which might contain feces) cascades over the trap and into the regular drain below. (The Teapot Effect is so named because when tea is poured slowly, the liquid tends to dribble down the spout, but a fast pour forms an arcing stream.) The only catch is that all urine must first hit the pan—meaning men must always sit down to use the toilet.’
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Joe Josephs Dead Boys Rule, 2013
‘Re-creation of a filthy restroom of CBGB, the Bowery club that was one of the birthplaces of punk.’
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Lai Yu Tong Objects Taking Sides, 2019
‘On the night of 21 July 2019, a group of armed men dressed in white stormed the train station in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, and started intimidating and beating people up indiscriminately. They mostly targetted protesters dressed in black and on their way home from the pro-democracy protests that were happening regularly then but members of the public were also not spared. Two policemen were seen walking away from the scene of the violence as it was happening. Law enforcement only arrived 38 minutes later despite the nearest police station being just a 5 minutes walk away from the station. I visited Hong Kong with no luggage and little belongings in September 2019. The first things that I bought were toiletries and cigarettes. I made this work after I had returned, as I was unpacking my belongings from that trip.’
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Ai Weiwei Marble Toilet Paper, 2020
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Dash Snow UNTITLED (TABLE DRUGS, TOILET, GUN/MONEY), 2008
Digital c-print
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David Attwood Two Harpic Lemon Toilet Rim Blocks, 2017
‘In September of 2016 during a studio residency I placed a number of lemon-themed cleaning products in the public bathroom of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Things like lemon hand wash, a lemon-yellow hand towel and matching bath mat, lemon Domestos and a pair of Harpic Lemon Toilet Rim Blocks. The toilet rim blocks are sold in a convenient pack of two, and so I thought that their placement at 3 and 9, across from each other – kind of bisecting the porcelain rim horizontally – might invite a double-take for the unsuspecting occupant, something akin to a glitch, like in The Matrix when Neo sees the black cat walk past twice.’
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Pallavi Sharma Beyond Rituals, 2010
‘As the paper scrolls down into the lotas, it resembles flowing water; intends to start a discourse on interrelationship of cultural practices and its impact on ecology and consciously think about our lifestyle choices and habits.’
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Tetsuya Ishida A man running away to the lavatory, 1996
‘In his short ten year career, Tetsuya Ishida captured the anxieties and trauma he shared with countless young Japanese people who reached adulthood in the 1990s, the country’s ‘Lost Decade’ that followed the burst of its bubble economy.’
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Jo Nakashima Toilet Paper Rose, 2019
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Nicola Bolla Saluzzo, 1963
aluminum sculpture and Swarovski crystals, defects
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Jeremy Bentham Don’t Miss A Sec, 2004
‘An art exhibit of a usable toilet enclosed in a cube of one-way glass is seen across the road from London’s Tate Britain Museum. The person inside the outhouse can see passersby while remaining invisible to them.’
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Jason Rhoades Portable Toilet and Bamboo Stick/Pencil Set, 1993
plastic bucket, lid, bamboo stick, two polaroid photographs and paper instructions
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Gerhard Richter Toilet Paper, 1965
oil painting
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Qiu Anxiong The Doubter, 2010
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Gregor Schneider WHITE TORTURE, 2005
room within a room, chipboards on a wooden construction, 1 lamp, 1 stainless-steel toilet, 1 door, 1 mattress, gray linoleum floor, walls and ceiling high-gloss white, detached
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Joseph Beuys Contemplating Joyce’s scrotum-tightening Sea, Sandycove, 1974
‘Beuys stands in a urinal at the 40 foot bathing area in 1974. He had come to visit The James Joyce Tower around the corner. The James Joyce Tower is one of a series of Martello towers that now holds a museum devoted to the life and works of James Joyce. Joyce made the tower the setting for the first chapter of his masterpiece, Ulysses.’
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Anastassia Elias Various, 2010-2017
‘Yes, it is a real toilet paper roll. This is just a cardboard roll, nothing else. Because it contains the word «toilet» in its name, it becomes impressive for some people. I just found that a cardboard tube was an interesting setting for a paper sculpture. And I didn’t need to make them myself, I found them ready to use. But I enjoy and understand the surprise that people have to see artworks made using toilet paper rolls.’
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Martha Alf Opposites and Contradictions, 1972-1975
‘Alf placed her subject center stage and perfected her treatment of light and shadow, essentially transforming each toilet paper roll into a monolithic altar set against a backdrop resembling an Ellsworth Kelly geometric abstraction. In the earlier examples, the rolls are rendered in intensified shades of actual toilet paper, such as blue and salmon. By 1974, she was painting the rolls in the improbable color black, giving her cylindrical altars funerary overtones. She created her ultimate parody of male-dominated high art with “Black” (1974), in which she satirizes Ad Reinhardt by centering a black toilet paper roll within a monochromatic black field. Although this may seem a critique on the surface, both artists viewed their images as iconic.’
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Frederick Wood Youth throwing up in toilet, 2002
bathroom, paint, faux-vomit
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Ilya Kabakov The Toilet, 1992
‘In 1992 Kabakov constructed an exact replica of provincial Soviet toilet – the kind that one encounters in bus and train stations – for the Documenta show in Kassel, Germany. The installation struck the visitors as at once affectionate and and repulsive, confessional and conceptual. It is after the execution of the toilets that Kabakov made the final decision not to return to Russia.
‘The toilets were placed behind the main building of the exhibition, Friedrizeanum, just the right place for such an establishment. Kabakov describes them as “sad structures with walls of white lime turned dirty and shabby, covered by obscene graffiti that one cannot look at without being overcome with nausea and despair.” The original toilets did not have stall doors. Everyone could see everyone else “answering the call of nature” in what in Russian was called “the eagle position,” perched over “the black hole.” Toilets were communal, as were ordinary people’s residences. Voyeurism became nearly obsolete; one developed, rather, the opposite tendency, that of retention of sight. One was less tempted to steal glances than to close one’s eyes. Every toilet-goer accepted the conditions of total visibility.
‘To go to the toilet, visitors had to stand in a long line. Expecting to find a functional place to take care of one’s bodily needs, or an artfully profane exhibit where one could flash a black outfit, visitors were inevitably surprised by the toilet’s interior design. Inside, there was an ordinary, Soviet two-room apartment inhabited by “some respectable and quiet people.” Here, side by side with the “black hole,” everydaylife continues uninterrupted. There is a table with a tablecloth, a glass cabinet, bookshelves, a sofa with a pillow, and even a reproduction of an anonymous Dutch painting, the ultimate in homey art. There is a sense of a captured presence, of an arrested moment: the dishes have not yet been cleared, a jacket has been dropped on a chair. Children’s toys frame the black hole of the toilet, which has lost its smell with the passage of time.’
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Walter Marchetti Piano del Papel Higiénico, 1990
toilet paper
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‘Taiwan’s Modern Toilet, self-described as a “scatological fantasyland”, is where the idea of toilet-themed restaurants first began with its initial concept dating all the way back to 2004. Once upstairs, the server sits you onto a toilet seat at a 💩-filled basin, hands you a menu in the shape of a toilet seat and brings out your food in little toilet/urinal-shaped bowls. I ordered the Toilet Chicken Nuggets and the Toilet #1 Ice Shavings (chocolate ice made to look like diarrhea and served in a mini squat toilet), as well as a drink with the grotesque name of bleeding haemorrhoid strawberry milk. The servings were large and they were well-presented.’
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Robert Gober Urinal, 1985
plaster, wire lath, wood, semi-gloss enamel paint
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Sarah Lucas I SCREAM DADDIO, 2012
photograph
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Emmett Ramstad Watching You Watching Me Watching You (Hunting Season), 2017
hunting stand, ladder, bathroom stall wall, toilet paper cache, smoke alarms, near dead batteries
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Josephine Pryde The Flight That Moved Them, 2021
‘Portrait-format photographs depicting a small, pink-brown octopus draped around a soap dispenser, trash unit and counter in an airplane bathroom, its tentacles dangling down into the oval-shaped metal sink. The ends of its tentacles appear like worms in a puddle near the drain. The photo is lit by a flash, in a style reminiscent of fashion or street photography. A sticker with text under the wall mirror, in German and then English, asks users of the bathroom to be courteous to the next user.’
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Erwin Wurm Urinal, 2010
Acrylic, paint
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Lou Masduraud Selfportrait as a fountain of you, 2024
oxidized copper, casted bronze, aluminium, brass, bucket, basin, drain, pipes, pant, cristal pearls, pickel jar lid, chewing gum, pumping systems, water
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Bjarne Melgaard Bathroom, 2021
‘On one wall of Luxembourg & Dayan’s fourth-floor bathroom, where he built his latest installation, Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard hung a letter that he wrote late last year to murderer Teodoro Baez, who is serving a life sentence in Pontiac, Illinois, for killing two people with a samurai sword after a dispute about drugs. Baez’s had been sentenced to die, but he was spared last year when Illinois abolished the death penalty. In his letter to Baez, Melgaard introduces himself as “a contemporary artist” and explains that he is working on a show at a New York gallery. “I own several letters and drawings of yours,” he explains, adding that he included those works in a group show he curated at Maccarone last year, “The Social Failure,” a one-week addendum of sorts to his well reviewed exhibition “After Shelley Duval ’72 (Frogs on the High Line),” whose artist list included more than two dozen murderers, including Ted Bundy, Phillip Jablonski, and John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who is believed to have killed more than 33 young boys and who took up painting after his arrest. He goes on to tell Baez that he is “interested in establishing a correspondence,” and asks if he is willing to “collaborate to the extent you are able” on an upcoming exhibition. It’s Pay for Your Pleasure the sequel, apparently, in which the artist throws himself into even more twisted, abject ethical and moral situations. It sounds like a pretty horrendous idea—the artist taking Jerry Magoo’s comparison of him to Slipknot to some horrific extreme—but we’ll see how it all pans out. (Melgaard, for the record, has an installation opening at Karma on January 19.) The piece at Luxembourg & Dayan, though, was pure Melgaard, the overload of ideas and form that everyone has been swooning over for the past few years all shoved into a tiny bathroom: chalkboard walls scrawled with messages, pictures of Baez, a sink filled with Diet Coke cans, empty prescription bottles (labeled for Melgaard, no less) and pills, obscene drawings, a photograph of a ferocious-looking jaguar.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Steeqhen, Hi, S. Driving oneself mad is the cure everything, I think? Travel anxiety is a drag, but it melts to nothing as soon as you arrive, and maybe even when you sit down in the plane seat if you’re lucky. The Paris metro is easy. And see you pretty soon. ** James Bennett, Hi, James. Yes, I can only type with one finger so I type everything with one finger. I would say it’s impractical, but it’s always gotten the job done, it seems. Oh, you’re there! I hope it isn’t (too) flooded and you’re not having to stomp around in thigh high rubber boots. Envy, even so. Mutual cheering for sure, sir. Have an insane blast. ** James, The gray extends to here with considerable moisture at the moment. You’re swift. As a reader, and, well, probably in general. Trivia: Zac and I shot a music video for Xiu Xiu, but the record company hated it, and it never got released. Probably not as much debauchery as you’re imagining. Adulthood also comes with this sense of practicality that makes reality a compromise. If I’m anything to go by, all the super cool, popular guys at my high school all disappeared into the ether of the world without a trace, and me, former unpopular weirdo, have a Wikipedia page. How was your first college day. I sent luck if you felt any trace of it. ** jay, Ah, you’re an Infinity Land dude. Oh, okay, subcutaneous infusion, gotcha. I hope that’s too much of a drag for you. ‘Hannibal’, right, I remember when people were really into that, I guess when it was a newbie. I don’t do TV, so I only know about TV things based on if they’re a ‘thing’ or not and for how long. Sounds fun enough. Nice. Mario is still wending through the obstacle course that King Olly has made of Peach’s Castle by turning it into an origami. But he’ll get there. Thank you. You still in that tropical sounding game? ** Steve, That did sound terrifying, and I’m glad it reached some kind of doability. So sorry, Steve. Snow, nice, or, well, nice from afar. Very true: your assessment of the film availability issue. Sadly, the kinds of films I’m most interested by haven’t been made accessible to all but the most extremely diligent and adventurous punters since the late 70s, if even then. It’s not so bad in Paris, of course, relatively speaking, assuming you’re free on the one day every ten years when those kinds of films get shown somewhere. ** Diesel Clementine, That sounds fun indeed. My birthday is on Friday, but luckily I don’t have any local friends who drink more than a glass of wine or two, or, if they do, I don’t think they would see my birthday as an occasion win which to blow themselves out. First footing sounds to be very pleasant tradition. You Scots do know how to charm. Mm, the only French thing like that that I know of is you’re supposed to eat a ‘Galettes des rois’ on or near New Years. In the US, my mom made us eat Black Eyed Peas on NYE, but I think that’s just a Southern tradition. She was from Texas. Happy anniversary a day late! Best back to you in high volume. ** Tyler Ookami, Baudelaire is pretty great. My favorite is ‘Paris Spleen’ if you ever want a place to start. Oh, boy, the Liturgy hatred is or was something else. Maybe his transitioning kind of quieted everyone down? I used to want to see or hear everything that was heavily and successfully hyped so I could understand it and what people at that current time found exciting, but I’ve gotten pretty picky. Now I just want to understand the effect of a successful hype but not so much the thing at the center of it. For better or worse. ** Dominik, Hi!!! IFP’s books are beauties, and they’re also very good at making charismatic ‘welcome’ posts. A million percent agreed on the mania for remade things. Like that new ‘American Psycho’ film. Why? Everyone seems to want to see something familiar wearing a new outfit. It’s not a good thing, I also don’t think. Can’t beat a weekend of reading. I did my Biweekly Zoom Club thing — topics: poems by Elaine Equi and the film ‘Shock Corridor’ — and I saw the new Herzog film ‘The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft’, which was very good. And I made a bunch of plans to see people, including the Infinity Land Press people who are visiting, and … not a ton else. Love on a schoolboy’s wages, G. ** Justin D, Ah, okay, TikTok mind numbing as your brain’s bedtime desert, that seems plausible. I’ll see what’s left of SSJ’s stuff out there to use. At one point I checked, and there wasn’t much left. I … think he got nuked first? My weekend, as described just above, was perfectly even keeled and maybe sort of revved up my week, we’ll see. What’s your favorite form of eating pasta? ** Florian S. Fauna, Hi, Florian! Good to see you, maestro. I do know ‘Maldoror’, yes, you are correct. I’m mostly just getting Zac’s and my new film ready to begin its life in a few months and writing the next film. Oh, sure, great, write to me by email or even FB messenger, and I’ll give you my mailing address. Thank you, pal. That would be great! ** HaRpEr, Hi. Infinity Land can put notches in your bank account. Yes, the lemon simulating bottles I collected were topographical with realistic texture and all that stuff. Without that, what’s the point? My roommate Yury watches this YouTube channel where a woman uses every episode to explain exactly what procedures certain plasticised celebrities have had done and how much their new faces cost them, and I’m always actually surprised by how weirdly affordable the operations are. It’s like buying really fancy furniture. Yeah, Hesse is really good. I’m excited to see what they do next. I asked them when they read here, and something is in the works, but I can’t remember what. A novel maybe? How was your first day off enforced normalcy? ** Uday, It’s totally fine to pop in and out, no problem. I’m sure I said before that where I grew up there were wild peacocks all over the place, wandering the streets. I sort of miss mistakenly thinking there were women outside my house wailing in pain and loneliness when I was stoned. I most look forward to getting Zac’s and my new film finally out into the world after so long. Otherwise, I want to go to Japan. And to Epic Universe. You? No, I tend to try to pretend my birthdays aren’t happening, and I think I’m going to an electronic music festival that night which should pretty much erase the occasion. I’m not against cards. I’m not, like, neurotic about birthdays. If people want to use that day to be nice to me, I’m all for it. Happy week ahead. ** Okay. Today you get the no doubt long awaited sequel to ‘Toilet’, lucky you. See you tomorrow.