Robert ArnesonJohn Figure
1965
glazed stonware
In the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, one of John Arneson's glazed stoneware is being displayed. His "John Figure" is a ceramic statue of a toilet juxtaposed with a human face and a female body placed on a tile floor which has foot prints and a foot walking away from the toilet. My interpretation of his surreal ceramic is that no matter how crappy your life seems right now, it can only get worse. You could be trapped inside of the toilet never escaping. Crying as loud as you can, but no one will be able to help you out. If you escape it, your path would be visible where ever you go. Though you escaped your problems, a part of you would still be stuck though it. You would never be gone completely of that problem, you will always have the memory of the struggle and the pain.
Yikes! That's a pretty bleak interpretation! So, you see the piece as saying pain is inescapable? I find myself wondering what it means to have a female figure made out of a toilet - frankly there seems to be a kind of nasty misogyny to it, or a suggestion that the womb is a toilet. One way of the other it seems to be saying something pretty unpleasant.
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