FREE EXHIBITION 18.09.2020 / 3.10.2020 MARC MARTIN lAvAllée-bRuSSelS les tasses PublIC TOIleTS, PRIvATe AFFAIRS After beRlIN and PARIS, « En milieu hostile à la diversité, les mœurs ‘‘contre-nature’’ devaient se vivre clandestinement. the exhibition will move Dans l’anonymat des pissotières, avec l’alibi du besoin naturel. Les pissotières, aussi sordides soient-elles en apparence, ont bel et bien permis à des générations de s’émanciper. Faute de to bRuSSelS LaVallée mieux, les gays vivaient là une liberté sexuelle qu’on ne leur accordait pas ailleurs. » from 18 September. Emanuele Peyret - Libération - « Petits coins, gros tabous » « Marc Martin raconte une infime partie de l’Histoire qui a existé et que personne n’avait voulu explorer ni dévoiler jusque-là...» Nathalie Jérôme - Le Figaro - « L’Histoire secrète des vespasiennes... » « Der französische Fotograf Marc Martin zeigt in seiner Ausstellung, was das Reizvolle an öffentlichen Toiletten als Sextreffpunkt ist...» Enrico Ippolito - Spiegel Kultur - « Pissbuden, "Klappen", "Büdchen"... » « The primary function of the urinals, however, was soon subverted by other needs...» Digby Warde-Aldam - The Guardian - « How the urinals of Paris helped beat the Nazis » « Le photographe Marc Martin s’intéresse aux sexualités en marge et aux interstices de la culture LGBT. Un ouvrage magnifique... » Patrick Thévenin - Les Inrockuptibles - « Un livre et une expo sur les pissotières » « C'est... un objet impur, oublié des jeunes générations LGBT » Didier Roth Bettoni - Hétéroclite - « Piss and Love, un ouvrage consacré aux tasses » « L’histoire particulière des pissotières... Une expo qui fait date » Hélène Molinari - Komitid - « Marc Martin redore le blason des pissotières... » « Une esthétique à la Jean Genet... » Etienne Dumont - Bilan - « Les tasses de Marc Martin » « Le photographe rappelle à notre mémoire les dessous oubliés des pissotières où des homosexuels, travestis et prostitués se sont retrouvés pendant plus d’un siècle... » Maïa Mazaurette - Le Monde - « Les toilettes, dernier lieu de l’intime » “Never in the history of sex was so much offered to so many by so few.” Quentin Crisp , “The Naked Civil Servant”, 1968. « Anonymous », Collection Marc Martin. PUBLIC TOILETS, PRIVATE AFFAIRS In the closet of History, cottages are filthy. In the slang of the last century, the cottage (la tasse in french), was the old public toilet. Installed in public spaces in a time when hygiene mattered, urinals were meant to meet the physiological needs of the male population. But secretly, cottages also addressed a social need. Men with “perverted morals" laid the cornerstones of cottage living. Opened in 2018 at the Schwules Museum in Berlin, Marc Martin's exhibition creates a bridge between generations and invites contemporary art to enter a dialogue with the past: "Urinals have always had a bad reputation. They are more synonymous with shame than pride within the LGBTQI+ community. Those who cruised in there have often been accused of being cowardly, de - scribing their encounters in these public places as sordid. But didn't they, for over a century, dare to confront pleasures defended by the law? I wish these men could be credited with a certain courage. I would like to bring back to these places their troubling sensual past ". Instead of political correctness, the artist Marc Martin favours human and social truth. He advocates the visibility of sexuality in all its diversity. The artist also reminds us that in some countries, even today, homosexuality is still forbidden. Cottages ( or tasses) , these anonymous places of passage, will carry on their role of clandestine hideout. The exhibition "LES TASSES" will open to the public on 18th September, until 3rd October 2020 at LaVallée . The exhibition is organised by LaVallée-Smart in collaboration with the Schwules Museum Berlin and the RainbowHouse (as part of the PrideFestival Brussels ). Anonymous. Collection Marc Martin. « Vestiges », Marc Martin 2017. “Urinals brought all manner of men in close proximity to each other in a way that would have been far less inconspicuous elsewhere: heterosexuals and homosexuals, masculine and effeminate, young and old, rich and poor...” Wannes Dupont , « Het onbedwongen kwaad . Een genealogie van homoseksualiteit in België », 2015. « Coup d’oeil, pour comparer ? », Marc Martin 2017. Prohibition to urinate in the streets under penalty of prosecution before the simple police court, 1846. Archives of the City of Brussels . Arrest of the Manneken Pis of Brussels. Satirical poster mocking the 1846 ban on relieving oneself in the public. Archives of the City of Brussels. The vespasienne , and... public utilities Extract from the exhibition catalogue Marc Martin, Les tasses LaVallée-Brussels. The public urinal was a huge step forward in public hy - of criticism. Photographs of Old Brussels in 1900 show giene The vespasienne – named after the Roman Em - many types of cast-iron or slate urinals, often built di - peror Vespasian, who once collected a tax on urine – rectly against the facades of buildings. Discreetly im - was developed in 1834 in Paris. Hence, the French capi - planted in dead ends and side streets, they offered little tal claimed to set standards in the field of public toilets, corners of (and occasions for) illicit pleasure. and the Belgium capital followed suit. Very early on, certain urinals in Brussels, known as cruis - At the beginning of the 19 th century, the sanitary facilities ing spots for the city’s homosexuals, were subject to po - in Brussels were still rudimentary. A large proportion of lice surveillance. As told by the historian Wannes Dupont the houses had no latrines. Where toilet facilities did in his study on homosexuality in Belgium, those located exist, there was often no maintenance . According to behind La Bourse (the Stock Exchange), were described Claire Billen and Jean-Michel Decroly, there were no pub - in a police report of 1895 as being frequented during lic latrines in Brussels at the time. During their peregrina - the day by stockbrokers and men of business, but after tions, the inhabitants relieved themselves as it suited midnight by men of the ‘business of the behind ’. 3 them: under the shelter of a tree, in dark corners or against discreet walls. Some of the alleys witnessing wild The more ingenious the architects became, the greater peeing were given nicknames by the citizens of Brussels: the chance the urinals would not be used exclusively Pisstrotje, Voeuil Strotje or Schaaitstrotje .1 for their intended purpose. Their protective sheet metal, which was supposed to hide the person urinating on the In 1845, a first series of rudimentary urinals had hardly inside from the view of passers-by, became increasingly been installed when the population was advised to re - imposing. It perpetuated the urinal’s location and rein - spect the 1836 ordinance, under penalty of prosecution: forced its shady role. The advertising model became em - It is prohibited to urinate in the streets! Cartoons of the blematic of the 1900s. Its “teapot” shape earned it its “arrest” of Manneken Pis immediately circulated in the first nickname, probably inspired by the activity of those press. Given the scarcity of Brussels’ first urinals, the who indulged in “ faire les tasses ” (literally “doing the male population continued to relieve itself wherever cups”). This three-stall vespasienne became the favourite they pleased. It took the famous Parisian pissoir columns among “cruisers” who, for mere “practical” reasons, pre - with illuminated advertising and two or three stalls to ferred to occupy the middle stall. change this attitude: 200 of these striking kiosks were erected on the most prominent sidewalks and on the main traffic arteries of Brussels. Twenty-two urinals were 1 & 2 / Claire Billen / Jean-Michel Decroly , « Petits coins dans la located close to City Hall, around St. Michael’s collegiate grande ville – les toilettes publiques de Bruxelles du moyen âge à Church (Saint-Michel) and on the sidewalks of Rue Royale nos jours », 2003. (TN: The nicknames mean “Piss, Dirt & Shit 2 and Rue de la Régence . These impressive urinals, in the Streets ” respectively.) 3/ Wannes Dupont, “ Het onbedwongen vicinity of public monuments, quickly became the subject kwaad. Een genealogie van homoseksualiteit in België” , 2015. « Anonymous », Collection Marc Martin. Anoniemen Marc Martin, 2007-2020. Set of amateur photographs. Personal collection (selection). A certain degree of authenticity is what characterises amateur photography. This set of private images of vespasiennes forms an unusual body of work. I found them online, at flea markets or at garage sales, over a period of ten years. None of them are sourced or dated. Their authors and the people represented are unknown. By assembling these photographs (often with serrated edges), I want to build a bridge between narrative and memory. Different in texture, size, provenance and time period, often blurry, full of scratches and of the passage of time (or in Proustian style: in “remembrance of things past”), they illustrate implicit otherness. They give identity clues and draw clandestine maps out in the public. Exposed on a straight line, these anonymous photographs – all surrounded by white passe-partouts and equidistant from each other – deconstruct the image of “urban phantoms”. They read like a quest for one’s roots. Gender Trouble Extract from the exhibition catalogue Marc Martin, Les tasses LaVallée-Brussels. Women probably never enjoyed the benefits