At this year’s Frieze Art Fair in London, Julie Verhoeven is presenting her performative intervention The Toilet Attendant… Now Wash Your Hands in one of the washroom complexes. The aim is not only to create a more hospitable environment but also to open up space for critical thinking about the invisibility of certain labour groups. So if you do visit Frieze, make sure you visit the facilities—and don’t forget to smile nicely at the attendant.
This feature originally appeared in Issue 28
1. I heart toilets, bathrooms and public conveniences. A toilet cubicle is my room of choice. A place of refuge from the world, offering blissful solitude and time to reflect—and expel.
2. I heart bog roll. I know not why, and fear it might be a somewhat infantile comforter or the like. How can so simplistic a design be so gratifying? My only toilet roll disappointment is the anticlimax of arriving at the naked cardboard core. Why can’t it have a joke, ditty or riddle printed on it—or even a forfeit?
3. I heart toilet humour. Salacious, juvenile and absurd. Smut at its most pungent.
4. I heart erotica in toilets. The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover is a beautiful example. Illicit indiscretions, confused bodily functions, shame, disgust and humiliation. Weird shit.
5. I heart plumbing. Such an underrated aesthetic, such a thing of beauty. The individual components remind me of a rather curvaceous typeface.
6. I heart the Toilet Poster, ‘Phi Zappa Krappa’. What a glorious vision—a vulnerable yet defiant, deviant Frank Zappa, doing his business and looking his best.
7. I heart toilet attendants. Let us not forget the shame of Cheryl Tweedy, as reported in the Guardian, 21.10.03: ‘Tweedy fined £3,000 for punching club’s toilet attendant… The assault was precipitated by an argument over some lollipops.’
8. I heart odorous toilet chat.
9. I heart the flushing lavatory, our throne, and celebrate and respect it in the world of design classics. Difficult to improve upon.
10. I heart and strive for a constipation-free creative output. Simple, universal, primal pleasures.
