Such a legendary statement piece...and it makes you laugh

'Don't Miss A Sec’ (2003/2004:

Two-way mirror structure, stainless-steel, toilet unit,
concrete floor, aluminum, fluorescent lights
250cm x 140cm x 190 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan
and West of Rome Inc., Los Angeles
© Monica Bonvicini, VG-Bildkunst

Installation view:
Art Unlimited
Art Basel (2004)
Exterior view.

Mauricio Cattelan wishes!

Monica Bonvicini certainly turned at the Basel Art Fair with her legendary statement piece "Don't Miss A Sec". Here (via www.neoaztlan.com ) Bonvicini outlines the impulse behind the idea to writer Kate Green:

KG: One of your works, Don’t Miss A Sec (2004), was an outdoor toilet temporary installed on a crowded street adjacent to the Basel Art Fair. The one-way glass allowed users to continue seeing art and people while not being seen. It alluded to the compulsive seeing that such events foster and the power relationships inherent in looking and being looked at. Describe, in your own words, where this work was coming from.

MB: In 1998, when I started participating in biennials (Berlin Biennial, SITE Sante Fe Biennial, Biennale of Sydney), the social craziness around the events was new. I particularly remember the 1999 Venice Biennale. I had no money for the vaporetto. I had to run out of a very expensive hotel’s bar after a couple of dealers from New York I met left in a rage without paying the bill after I told them I would not show with them. I didn’t know many people. The morning we were to go on stage to receive the (Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation), I was alone. My dealers had left Venice. I didn’t know what to wear and I asked the cleaning lady of the hotel which of the two t-shirts I had was a better fit for the occasion. Neither was quite right.

The idea for Don’t Miss a Sec.’ came in 1999. I made the drawings for it on an airplane. It relates to the urge, during big art events where so much is about “see and be seen,” to not miss anything. At any big art event, everyone needs a bathroom at some point. If you use the work for it, you are still able to see the next art work, who is passing by, who is talking with whom, and who is wearing what. At the same time, you can literally show your ass to them.

Don’t Miss a Sec.’ is also an ironic comment on the idea of modernism, particularly through referencing the pavilion works of Dan Graham. Don’t Miss a Sec.’ is about the desire and failure to “see it all” which is a strong trait in modernism. This work absurdly pushes at the limits of what is public and what is private and offers a performative element in which inside and outside are blurred together.