Saâdane Afif
"Object for Bathroom"
1917-2017
Paint on porcelain
13.5 × 13.5 × 13.5 cm
Limited edition of 25 copies
Certificate numbered and signed by the artist
In 1917, "Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp was rejected from the Society of Independent Artists. The work’s fame following its disappearance was in part due to its photographic reproduction. The image by Stieglitz is taken head-on, which abstracts the form, distancing the object from its function. The article titled “Buddha of the Bathroom” appeared in The Blind Man with this illustration, proposing an analogous interpretation of the "Fountain", significantly through the comparison to a Buddha figure. Thus, with "Object for Bathroom", Saâdane Afif reverses this analogy by asking the buyer to place this representation of the Buddha in Limoges porcelain with the face towards the sky, in the place of a urinal. The mirrored R.Mutt signature painted on the left of the sculpture’s drapery comes to asserts this process of overturning.
