Florentina Holzinger These Toilets in Venice Have the Art World Aflush

By Alex Marshall

On a recent afternoon at the Venice Biennale, I walked into a bright blue portable john and peed for art.

Just outside the booth, a naked woman was submerged in a huge water tank, breathing through a scuba mouthpiece. My urine was about to pass along a tube from the toilet through several filtration systems, before topping up her glass chamber’s water level.

The performer, who would stay in the tank for at least four hours, was essentially living in other people’s waste. And she had plenty of donors. The toilet is part of a presentation called “Seaworld Venice” by the choreographer and theater-maker Florentina Holzinger that is undoubtedly the biggest talker of this year’s Biennale, which opens to the public on Saturday and runs through Nov. 22.