Trumps Toilets – A One Shot Story

Photography is art, I don’t feel like there is any room left to debate otherwise. Most detractors who argued otherwise are long since dead and buried. Photography and other more abstract or temporary forms of art can have a fascinating interplay that I think is often under stated or completely ignored. A piece of performance art for example may only be preformed a few times for modest crowds at one location. Similar with protest art, it can all too quickly be torn down or moved to limit the offense it may cause or silence the protesters. If no photos are taken the art may fade into memory quite quickly, its message lost to the ages. While this may drift in to the realm of documentary photography I still feel that does not change the pure, live, experimental art concept. I have a very personal connection to one such event. One that I may be the only person to document or remember.

Way back in January of 2017 Donald Trump came to power as the 45th president of the United States. There was some fan fare and simultaneously some of the largest protest seen in Washington DC in decades. Most of these protests were exactly what one would expect, people marching down streets with signs that things that might be clever if they had not already existed inmate format for several months. But some of these protests were far more interesting and stray into what I would call forms of ‘protest art’ and I have seen no reference to it any where outside of the initial “display.”

The art in question was a series of urinal screens with an image on Donald Trump stenciled on them. These were stealthily taken into the National Gallery of art and placed in at least one bathroom. I do not know how many bathroom were hit or if some similar display was placed in to the women’s rooms. I also do not know if other building were hit with the protest art. I have no idea if any of the screens were saved but suspect some were, though I doubt they are on public display.

I bring this whole event up because despite its very memorable nature it seems to have fallen into total obscurity. But it has not been completely lost to the sands of time, because I shot a photo on my iPhone. It is probably one of the few pieces of evidence this protest took place. Which is a shame because the idea is pretty clever and clearly took a fair amount of time and money. I don’t have much more to say I just felt the need to share this and also explain why I feel the photos are important. They are not going to win a prize but I think it is a protest worth remembering. Sadly my Iphone photos are not that great, despite that they do preserve this unique piece of protest art in the wild.

As with may of my writings I can not claim there is some clever thesis statement to this whole article, or that I have some brilliant take that will change everyones minds and lead to a new era of enlightenment. I guess my take away is that protests and demonstrations are important and ‘we’ (as a society) should pay attention and ‘we’ (as in photographers) should engage with these movements. Get out there, pay attention, look for what no one else sees and maybe read the Monkey Wrench Gang.

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