The Toilet (2016) - Module 5: Art & Society

In this sculpture, made by the Mexican artist Yoshua Okn, in collaboration with the Spanish
artist Santiago Sierra, is presented a toilet that has the same shape as the popular Museo
Soumaya. This museum, located in the Polanco neighborhood in Mexico City, one of the richest
in the country in the middle of a poverty belt, houses the collection of Mexican magnate Carlos
Slim Hel (sixth richest man in the world).

Although this museum is considered a "gift" by Slim for Mexico and a "high world-class quality
museum" it has been the object of constant criticism for its curatorship and museography. The
museum houses a large permanent collection but the pieces that compose it are often judged
as "minor" or even "bad taste"1 by art critics. These reasons have led to the Soumaya Museum
being considered a work dedicated to the ego of Slim and the shameless financial elite of Mexico,
a country with one of the highest rates of inequality in the world.

The work speaks for itself, in the original installation there is even a framed poster of the Thinker
by Rodin, a replica that the Soumaya museum boasts on its entrance. The work locates the
current state of art in Mexico, on the one hand monopolized by billionaires with bad taste and
with a limited variety of works.

According to the artist Yoshua Okn, The Toilet serves to make a critical comment about the
antisocial behavior of some big businessmen:

The piece seeks to make an appropriation of the Soumaya Museum as a symbol of

corporate power. There is a whole tradition in the history of the art of works that
appropriate existing elements to recontextualize and resignify them. Famous and
obvious examples are Andy Warhol's Brillo soap boxes and Marcel Duchamp's urinal.2

But it is also a criticism of how the medium of art in Mexico is highly passive and uncritical.
Although Mexico City is one of the cities with the most museums in the world, most of them
present exhibitions that seek to preserve the status quo. The few contrary cases are the Museum
of Contemporary Art MUAC (where I found this piece) among other small galleries dedicated to
contemporary art. Majority of Mexican art critics also contribute to maintaining this status quo,
for they disdain everything contemporary in virtue of glorifying and sacralizing "true" (classic)
art.

Anyway, I think The Toilet is an extravagance in its kind and transgresses different values and
vices rooted in Mexican art and it is worth taking it up and put in depth what it implies.

1
https://thebirdinspace.com/2012/06/21/carlos-slims-soumaya-museum-a-monument-to-bad-taste/
http://mujerentransito.blogspot.mx/2011/11/el-excelente-mal-gusto-de-carlos-slim.html (In Spanish)
https://i-d.vice.com/es_mx/article/vbvvmd/sobre-el-excusado-de-yoshua-okn-y-santiago-sierra (In
Spanish)

2
http://m.excelsior.com.mx/expresiones/2016/02/03/1072748 (In Spanish)
The Toilet, 2016

In collaboration with Santiago Sierra.

The Toilet is a functioning luxury toilet made out of aluminium cast and with the shape of the
Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. This piece appropriates this building as a symbol of
corporate power.

Sculpture.
Functional toilet in aluminium cast.
Dimensions: 435 x 480 x 420 mm height

Photo
Gicle black and white.
Dimensions: 27.5 x 39 inches

(Taken from Santiago Sierra website)

Images taken from instagram