Setyembre 25, 2025

"A public toilet neutralizes and suspends the dualism between … what remains private and what is meant to be shared."

Wrote Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele in the notes for the Fall 2025 Runway Show, which had a set with "red toilet stalls, where models changed in and out of gender-fluid looks."

Quoted in "The Next Big Thing in Pop Culture: Public Bathrooms/In fashion, film and beyond, restrooms have become sites of creative inspiration" (NYT).

The NYT instructs us to think of a public bathrooms as "an apt setting for art exploring identity, the body and discretion"... which is so not what I'm looking for in a public bathroom. Ah, but I'm talking about basic human needs, not art. Art is supposed to challenge you and to upset you, if you are bourgeois.

51 komento:

Howard ayon kay ...

Pubic toilets are the appropriate venue for gender fluids

Eva Marie ayon kay ...

I would forgo art in public restroom. The materials for critical commentary are too readily at hand.

tommyesq ayon kay ...

Artists these days are all frauds.

john mosby ayon kay ...

This is when we need Titus. And Laslo. CC, JSM

RideSpaceMountain ayon kay ...

Pipe down junkies...you'll still be able to shoot up there. If asked just say you're 'performance art' and the bourgeois won't challenge you.

bagoh20 ayon kay ...

Is there anything, and I mean anything more worn out than dressing in drag? It was already worn out 50 years ago, if not longer. I don't even get the point anymore. It's not shocking. It's not attractive or artistic. It's usually gaudy and clownish. The message, if there is one, is lost and now more a message of perversion than it ever was in the past.
It's a form of expression for the narcissistic person devoid of originality, talent and taste. It's the "That's what she said." of fashion.

Yancey Ward ayon kay ...

"The NYT instructs us to think of a public bathrooms as "an apt setting for art exploring identity, the body and discretion"

Isn't this completely appropriate? The public restroom is exactly where a big pile of shit belongs.

bagoh20 ayon kay ...

Nice one, Howard! 10/10.

RideSpaceMountain ayon kay ...

"The public restroom is exactly where a big pile of shit belongs."

Plinth of shit please. It's art!

Joe Bar ayon kay ...

Gotta admit, I've seen a LOT of creativity in public restrooms. Is art? I am not qualified to judge.

Paddy O ayon kay ...

So much pop art and related is really about challenging the bourgeois assumptions of early 20th century Victorian culture.

Now it's just mind numbing and boring intended for people who have dulled their senses through persistent banality. All while being cheered by the similarly numbed.

Kandinsky's bottom of the pyramid who think attention is equivalent to thought-provoking.

n.n ayon kay ...

Water Closets are where bits are bleached

RNB ayon kay ...

Derelicte!

Old and slow ayon kay ...

That was one of your better efforts Howard. Or at least I enjoyed it.

Ampersand ayon kay ...

The daily sporadic need to eliminate liquid and solid digestive waste products is a constant reminder that we are smelly animals, albeit smelly animals with interesting brains. Our instinctive shame creates a need for privacy and, naturally, the world of art wishes to skewer the bourgeoisie by inverting our basic need. How do people actually make money doing things like this?

Leland ayon kay ...

Ally McBeal made 5 seasons starting in 1997. Sit down with your “next big thing”.

PM ayon kay ...

The logical next step for genderfluid.

RideSpaceMountain ayon kay ...

Such a venue is, dare I say, the perfect gallery for Hunter's art. Think of it like an autostereogram...you won't be able to actually tell which pieces are his unless you relax your pupils.

CJinPA ayon kay ...
Naalis ng may-ari ang komentong ito.
CJinPA ayon kay ...

"exploring identity, the body and discretion"...

I read this as "exploring identity, the body and excretion"...

Which makes more sense.

Jim K ayon kay ...

Just a short drive from Madison, at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, you can find bathroom art. https://www.jmkac.org/washrooms/

hawkeyedjb ayon kay ...

"Art is supposed to challenge you and to upset you, if you are bourgeois."

Indeed, that is the credo many artists live by, not realizing that the bourgeoisie has moved on to the realm of not caring.

Wince ayon kay ...

“A public toilet neutralizes and suspends the dualism between … what remains private and what is meant to be shared."

In other words: If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down?

Achilles ayon kay ...

Quoted in "The Next Big Thing in Pop Culture: Public Bathrooms/In fashion, film and beyond, restrooms have become sites of creative inspiration" (NYT).

Is there going to be a place of relative privacy where my daughters can use the restrooms?

Are we going to address the primary functions of restrooms which are to improve public health and reduce the spread of certain diseases?

Do we get to have basic institutions that serve as building blocks for a civilization?

It would seem like there are people who are bound and determined to destroy civilized society at a fundamental level.

Wince ayon kay ...

If it floats, eat more oats.

Yancey Ward ayon kay ...

"Indeed, that is the credo many artists live by, not realizing that the bourgeoisie has moved on to the realm of not caring."

Yes- this! Thanks for summarizing the situation so perfectly.

rehajm ayon kay ...

Next up: Versace Vomitoriums!

RCOCEAN II ayon kay ...

The American Elite - at least for the last 90 years - has always been tasteless and vulgar. Its what makes their attacks on Trump so hilarious. Talk about the pot and the kettle. I guess the NYT's sex writer took the day off.

RCOCEAN II ayon kay ...

The American Elite - at least for the last 90 years - has always been tasteless and vulgar. Its what makes their attacks on Trump so hilarious. Talk about the pot and the kettle. I guess the NYT's sex writer took the day off.

Lazarus ayon kay ...

The NYT instructs us to think of a public bathrooms as "an apt setting for art exploring identity, the body and discretion".

Um ... that used to be a crime a crime in England. Ask John Gielgud. Or better -- don't.

Mike (MJB Wolf) ayon kay ...

"I'll take 'Places I Avoid at all Cost' for $200, Alex."

JAORE ayon kay ...

Me. ME MEEEEEEEEEEE!
The driving force of much of today's "art".
Note I did not say "modern" art.
Thinking a rotting banana taped to a wall sends an emotional message? Sure. But the message is you are all idiots to buy this crap.

JAORE ayon kay ...

I forgot to praise Howard's post. Perfection.

Josephbleau ayon kay ...

The duality of privacy and shared space is what makes public restrooms violent pits of crime.

Hassayamper ayon kay ...

I've been saying "Art Is Shit" for a very long time, and look where we are now.

Hassayamper ayon kay ...

Nowadays the way to really épater les bourgeoisie is to emulate Thomas Kinkade or Bob Ross, or if you have actual talent, the academic realism of Bouguereau and Gérôme. For extra offense to the Manhattan/Islington luvvies, include some explicit Christian iconography.

Leora ayon kay ...

I think of the Egyptian style bathrooms in the Fox Theatre in Atlanta and of the Parrots in tile in a Youth Hostel I once stayed at on Cape Cod as well as Duchamp's urinal which I have only read about. I've been considering a glass wall for my shower which I understand can be embossed with some works of Vincent Van Gogh.

Leora ayon kay ...

I also thought of the train station rest room scene in Graham Greene's "Ministry of Fear" where all the toilets flush at once in response to an aerial bombing.

RideSpaceMountain ayon kay ...

"For extra offense to the Manhattan/Islington luvvies, include some explicit Christian iconography."

Call it Piss Christ V2.0. The bourgeoisie can supply the pissoirs with crosses, and the luvvies can provide the piss. Interactive art...so hot right now.

Leora ayon kay ...

Loved the Kohler Art Center restrooms.

Bob Boyd ayon kay ...

I totally get it. Why just this morning in a public toilet I created an amazing likeness of a full grown python.

boatbuilder ayon kay ...

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

That is job one for a public toilet. Nobody cares about the decorations.

Mason G ayon kay ...

"The Next Big Thing in Pop Culture..."

It's just a short vowel movement from "pop culture" to "poop culture".

Biff ayon kay ...

"In April, the [New York] City Council announced a plan to nearly double the number of public facilities by 2035. The expansion is expected to be particularly helpful to those experiencing homelessness, as well as to the city’s approximately 80,000 delivery workers."

That sounds like it was written by someone with the wisdom of Violet Affleck.

RideSpaceMountain ayon kay ...

"poop culture."

A better descriptor of the fashionista aristocracy and their shit taste in everything you shan't find.

wildswan ayon kay ...

Poop Culture

Our Motto - I don't give a shit

Art Work #1
Piss Luigi

Our Mission - Epater Karen

n.n ayon kay ...

A shit show featuring the back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP at the intersection of racism and sexism.

Oso Negro ayon kay ...

The public restrooms of NYC challenged and upset me back in my bourgeois days of the 1980s. In the list of memorable bowel movements is one in the Port Authority Bus Terminal - balancing with one leg using. The other to keep the door jammed closed against a would be intruder.

Saint Croix ayon kay ...

Art is supposed to challenge you and to upset you, if you are bourgeois.

Toilets that splash upwards.

Also, if it's art, you should charge admission.

Or, free admission, and then nail them with the $10 toilet paper. Talk about a captive audience.

Bunkypotatohead ayon kay ...

Public bathrooms in a shithole city seem redundant.

Rosalyn C. ayon kay ...

"Art is supposed to challenge you and to upset you, if you are bourgeois."
The art world today is all about identity politics and virtue signaling. If you are challenged or upset by the art you are no longer welcome or have any significance.

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