Fecal Commerce (collage detail)
2006
questions, toilets, uniforms, feces
n/a
From the Exhibition Catalogue:
Adrian Lohmüller’s current project, "fecal COMMERCE", utilizes Maryland Art Place’s open door policy as an opportunity to provide a free public restroom for those in need of one. By using signs, stencils, maps, and in some cases footsteps stenciled on the city’s sidewalks, Lohmüller directs Baltimore’s citizens and tourists to free public restrooms, subverting the usual “customers only” policy practiced by most businesses. In addition, Lohmüller encourages his audience to participate by posing as tourists in need of a public restroom, prepared to ask any municipal employee where they may find one. He further encourages the participants to photographically document this exchange and then mail him copies of the image as project documentation. By activating the public and subverting authority, it is clear that Lohmüller has created this didactic work to challenge how the most basic of our human bodily functions have been subsumed by consumer culture.
Adrian Lohmüller’s current project, "fecal COMMERCE", utilizes Maryland Art Place’s open door policy as an opportunity to provide a free public restroom for those in need of one. By using signs, stencils, maps, and in some cases footsteps stenciled on the city’s sidewalks, Lohmüller directs Baltimore’s citizens and tourists to free public restrooms, subverting the usual “customers only” policy practiced by most businesses. In addition, Lohmüller encourages his audience to participate by posing as tourists in need of a public restroom, prepared to ask any municipal employee where they may find one. He further encourages the participants to photographically document this exchange and then mail him copies of the image as project documentation. By activating the public and subverting authority, it is clear that Lohmüller has created this didactic work to challenge how the most basic of our human bodily functions have been subsumed by consumer culture.
