Elegant Pisser

Can a urinal be a work of art?

When Marcel Duchamp’s ‘elegant pisser’ was nominated the world’s most influential piece of modern art it highlighted once again our love-hate relationship with the loo. For some the modern plumbing system is a work of art in itself and the toilet one of man’s greatest inventions – up there with the wheel and printing press.

Although Duchamp’s Fountain scandalized polite society when it was first shown in 1917 and inspired the concept of low art, the porcelain pot, because of its very function in society, has been locked away in a dark room and only used on a needs must basis. The first time a toilet scene was shown in a mainstream movie was in 1960 in Psycho in the clean up shot after the famous shower scene.

But when the humble lavatory breaks out of its self-imposed stretch of solitary it does so in headline-grabbing style. Two of the more famous examples are in 1977 when the King of rock ‘n’ roll was literally toppled from his throne and died on the bathroom floor with his bum sticking up in the air. And then there was George Michael’s little act of indiscretion in a Beverly Hills ‘comfort station’ in 1998 when he was arrested for going solo in a lewd act by an undercover cop. This prompted one of the best ever headlines in the Sun newspaper: Zip me up before you go go.

Some people have a real fear or embarrassment of going to the toilet, especially public conveniences and when you see stuff like the ‘worst toilet in Scotland’ in Trainspotting it’s enough to scare anyone shitless. One of the worst fears is being caught without any toilet paper so spare a thought for Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 2 when he goes on his - only to find those naughty bad guys have planted a bomb under the khazi that is liable to go off on any plop. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction got caught coming out of the crapper looking like he’d just shot-up, which he probably had, only to get blown away by Bruce Willis.

The funniest toilet gag in the movies has to be in Naked Gun when Leslie Nielson goes for an extra long squirt with his lapel mike still on and the audience is treated to all the sound effects that blokes tend to do at the urinal.

Going to the toilet is a guilty pleasure, a place of piece and quiet, for contemplation and reading. For all we know Beach Boy Brian Wilson may have found inspiration for Good Vibrations while enjoying a quiet moment; it’s amazing where and when the muse can strike. Alexander Chase once declared: “Psychiatry’s chief contribution to philosophy is the discovery that the toilet is the seat of the soul.” A friend of mine, a magazine editor, swears that he gets all his best ideas for headlines and stories while sat on the bog.

Kurt Cobain revelled in all things scatological and recently actor Bob Hoskins revealed at the British Independent Film Awards that he reads scripts he is sent in the bathroom. "I take it to the loo. If I've suddenly got a cold bum, I think, 'hello, this must be a good script'. So it gets the cold bum test - that's the only way," he said. And in Uma Thurman’s reasoning never forget to flush: “It’s better to have a relationship with someone who cheats on you than with someone who does not flush the toilet.” So that’s why things didn’t work out between her and Gary.

Of course there are other things one can do in the loo apart from excretory functions and it can be a seat of power: “I was the one sat in the toilets and smoked and made the other girls cry,” said Tracey Ullman of her early years.

Back to Duchamp, who started this train of thought anyway. Can a urinal be a work of art? In an article by Max Podstolski on Spark-online he argues, “While the urinal was certainly not intended as an aesthetic object, it clearly emerged as a brilliantly-paradoxical aesthetic concept.” In the cause of artistic freedom an ordinary urinal had, in effect been metamorphosed into artwork. “It was no longer what it used to be, a ‘pisser’ in the vernacular,” says Podsolski, “because it had been disconnected (literally and figuratively) from its usual toilet context. It no longer existed to be pissed into, and there were no more pipes to drain the waste liquid away.”

Because there was no direct functional relationship, the act of peeing became symbolic and viewers, male ones anyway, were reminded of the sensations on viewing the object. “While the actual physical object is totally static, the concept of it as an artwork sets into motion a mental conundrum which is analogous to the 'ghost in the machine' of mind and body,” says Podsolski. “A person is not just a body, but a body with a mind. Similarly Fountain is not just a urinal, but a urinal activated in our minds by being an artwork.”

Although I’ve had lots of nasty experiences in toilets and had a bit of a phobia about going as a child, the best public toilet experience ever has got to be in The Peninsula hotel in Hong Kong. Take the lift up to the 28th floor to the Felix bar, designed by Philippe Starck. If the interior design and views doesn’t grab you – guys at least can visit the bathroom where a wonderful experience awaits when they take a leak. Part of the experience is the element of surprise so I won’t spoil it but enough to say if you want to piss on the world, then here’s the place to do it.