Toilets have long been a symbol of subversion in art—but a new generation of artists is using bathrooms to confront rights, sexuality, systemic violence, and the politics of the body
Since Marcel Duchamp submitted his readymade urinal, Fountain, to the 1917 Salon of the Society of Independent Artists, the toilet has occupied an unexpectedly powerful place in art history. The provocation was picked up nearly a century later by Maurizio Cattelan, whose satirical solid-gold toilet, America (2016), drew more than 100,000 visitors to the Guggenheim in New York. Both works transform objects associated with bodily function and filth into gleaming sculptures, forcing us to reconsider what art is and what it’s worth.
But today’s artists are pushing the toilet even further. Rather than simply questioning the nature of art objects, a new generation is using bathrooms and restrooms as charged spaces to interrogate gender discrimination, systemic violence, queer sexuality, and social shame. The bathroom, it turns out, is one of the most politically loaded rooms in the building.
As explained here, Polish artist Krzysztof Strzelecki’s solo exhibition “Rendezvous” at Anat Ebgi in New York features urinals and ornate vintage bathroom fixtures painted with vivid scenes of gay cruising. Strzelecki was inspired partly by a visit to Central Park’s public restroom, where the unusually low cubicle doors created an unsettling blend of exposure and excitement. “You lose the privacy, but it’s more exciting at the same time,” he said. “It’s so erotic, strange, and uncomfortable.” He is drawn to the sensuality of Victorian-era fittings—heavy, decorative, and requiring physical touch—in contrast to today’s sterile, touchless designs. The contradiction at the heart of his work mirrors a broader cultural tension: the bathroom is supposedly a clean space, yet it is the dirtiest room in the house. For Strzelecki, sex works the same way—something beautiful that society insists on treating as vulgar. A triptych of white-on-white bathroom tiles, titled Grope, Blow, and Handjob (all 2025), renders sexual acts in near-invisible relief, evoking the coded secrecy of cruising culture and the invisible traces of desire left behind in public spaces.
American artist Hugh Hayden took a more architectural approach in his 2024 exhibition “Hughmans” at Lisson Gallery in New York, installing 17 lockable toilet stalls that visitors could enter individually for private encounters with the sculptures inside. Elvis (2024) depicted a male torso with a gun in place of a penis; Boogey man (2024) presented a clinical cross-section of a body sliced through the genitals; Harlem (2024) filled a stall with cast-iron pots and copper pans as a symbol of American cultural plurality. The show used the intimacy and concealment of the toilet stall as a metaphor for the hidden violence of state power, connecting the privacy of the cubicle to the obscured workings of police brutality and imperial authority.
Illustrator Julie Verhoeven took a more playful but equally pointed approach at Frieze London 2016, where she transformed the fair’s toilets into an immersive installation called The Toilet Attendant… Now Wash Your Hands. She packed the space with tampons, stuffed animals, and disco balls, and stationed herself inside as an attendant—welcoming visitors of all genders while ’80s pop blasted from the speakers. Beneath the festive surface, the work made a pointed argument about the invisible labor of those who maintain clean, safe public facilities, turning an overlooked service role into a moment of genuine artistic and social reckoning.
Filmmaker and self-described “filth elder” John Waters made his mark more permanently when he launched “The John Waters Restrooms” at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2021. Playing on the tradition of wealthy donors having institutional wings named in their honor, Waters instead dedicated gender-neutral bathrooms—the museum’s first—as a statement of both humor and inclusion. Trans actress and activist Elizabeth Coffey co-hosted the opening, reminding the audience that for many people, simply finding a safe bathroom to use remains a matter of real urgency and danger.
Artist Emmett Ramstad has addressed that same urgency through conceptual installations that directly confront anti-trans bathroom legislation. His 2016 mirror piece You’re Welcome replaced gendered signage with welcoming messages, while Watching You Watching Me Watching You (Hunting Season) (2017) placed a looming hunting platform before a row of toilet stalls, giving viewers an unobstructed view inside. The piece implicates the observer as much as the observed, turning the invasive logic of discriminatory bathroom laws back on the viewer.
British painter Dale Lewis takes a rawer approach, depicting toilets as backdrops for scenes of excess, class, and bodily chaos. In Bratwurst (2017), restrooms are engulfed in debauchery—one figure vomits into a bowl, and another appears to be swallowed by the plumbing. Lewis uses disgust as a deliberate tool, forcing viewers to confront their own judgments about the people and behaviors on display. “I like everything to be on the surface and quite obvious,” he has said, “so people don’t have to guess—they can just see. People can get really mad looking at these.”
American textile artist Erin M. Riley works at the opposite end of the spectrum, creating woven tapestries that render private bathroom moments with quiet, unflinching intimacy. In Gushing (2024), a hand grips a bloodied cloth against a backdrop of white porcelain, the composition suggesting a person alone on the toilet, confronting their own body. Where other artists deploy the bathroom as a public arena, Riley reclaims it as a space for solitary, unguarded experience.
Taken together, these works reveal the bathroom as far more than a site of hygiene or humor. It is a space where some of our most primal instincts—shame, desire, disgust, and vulnerability—come into direct contact with broader forces of law, power, and culture. In the hands of these artists, the toilet becomes a surprisingly honest mirror of who we are and what we refuse to say out loud.