Book Reviews
From UANotebook
Ferem, M. (2006). Bathroom Graffiti. Mark Batty Publisher: New York.
Reviewed by Irina Gendelman 11/19/07
Mark Ferem explores bathroom graffiti (or latrinalia) as a vernacular form of communication by introducing it as an everyday ritual, which offers a glimpse into the collective consciousness of modern culture. The most compelling aspect of the book is the collection of photographs that he began gathering in 1994 in bathrooms across the United States. Public bathrooms tend to be difficult places to photograph because they are cramped and dark, but Ferem’s photographs capture layers of graffiti with impressive legibility and beautiful lighting. Though there are many stunning images, he does not let the art privilege the documentary value of the photograph. Rather than focusing on one striking drawing or phrase, he often documents the ways that several writings and drawings speak along side or to one another. This adds value to the photograph as an artifact of modern culture. The accompanying discussion, however, is not as attention-grabbing as the images. Ferem organizes his collection into unsophisticated categories – men’s, women’s, uni-sex, political, apocalyptic and random. He includes minimal metadata with the photographs, such as the type of bathroom (gender), the name of the establishment where the bathroom is located, the city and the state. His discussion (graffiti as resistance or graffiti as free speech) wanders towards the vague and scattered musings about latrinalia, its authors and the authors' intentions as he writes phrases like, “…the women of the future world are gathering their thoughts on bathroom walls, not to incite riots but to incite the spirits of the collectively oppressed.” He gives into the temptation of reading graffiti as a rebellion, rather than letting the readers make up their own minds based on the graffiti itself (as promised in the Forward). Ferem explains that images of latrinalia will be an interesting artifact for future anthropologists and as such, his images do offer a valuable resource. However, it would be more useful for future anthropologists (and more interesting for current readers) to have specific information about the context of the graffiti that he documents. For example, how did Ferem pick his locations? Is there a particular demographic/type of the people who frequent his chosen places? What was the date when each photograph was shot? What do the writers and readers of the particular bathrooms have to say about the graffiti? In addition to great photos, he includes a few insightful anecdotes about talking with bathroom writers. Hopefully, in his next book, he will include a more nuanced taxonomy, more context for with his photographs, as well as even more voices from the writers and readers themselves.
