Toilet
Artist:
Lutz Bacher
Date:
2013
Medium:
Sculpture
Materials:
Rubber, Dust
Collection:
Lafayette anticipations - Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin
The urinal has a strange descendance in Lutz Bacher’s sculpture Toilet (2013). From this canonical readymade, the artist removes the enamelled porcelain and retains only its soiled shape. Stained with dust and grime, these lava-coloured rubber toilets would be better suited to places of discomfort. While Lutz Bacher recognises the Duchampian heritage of this piece, she also marks her distance from the master in this field: skilled in the representation of sexual and gender identities, this unisex Toilet breaks away from the neutral masculine of Western art history. The artist also turns Fontaine on its head by proposing her own simulacrum, an artefact hostile to any functional use. The use of this vernacular motif is representative of her practice, which has made the familiar a repertoire of motifs for her visual work.