There are certain things that unite the human condition: birth, death, a good bunny chow and the universal indignity of the toilet. It’s that porcelain pedestal of humility — both altar and oubliette — that South African ceramicist Mervyn Gers has chosen as his latest canvas. Not for flowers. Not for soup. But for dissent.
The exhibition, which previewed at Mervyn Gers House in Cape Town on May 14, is called Dump on Dictators, and it's a political protest in porcelain. A movement in the movement of a movement — the bowel kind — flushed through with anger, artistry, and some gallows humour to keep from blocking the system.
At its shimmering, cobalt heart, this artwork isn't about toilets. It is about control — the way it's acquired, disguised and enforced by the sort of people who think “democracy” is a type of pastry. Gers, whose work is known for its beautiful craftsmanship and mastery of form, has done something unexpected: he’s made pottery angry, and a bit uncouth.
The inspiration came during South Africa’s Covid lockdown — a governmental exercise in catastrophe choreography that outlawed, among other things, the sale of cigarettes, booze and common sense. These diktats fell heaviest on the poor, while middle-class moralists stockpiled organic chickpeas and took up sourdough classes. Gers, watching this Kafkaesque carnival unfold, turned to history for precedent and clay for catharsis.
“The authoritarian overreach of the South African government during the lockdown, marked by draconian restrictions on supermarket sales, beach and dog-walking bans, and prohibitions on alcohol and cigarette sales, deepened my sense of discontent,” he says. “Added to this was the global frenzy of hoarding and physical altercations over toilet paper — often prioritised above basic food supplies — an intriguing phenomenon that caught my attention. That’s when my interest in using toilets as a medium began. Historically, human waste has been used as a weapon or a form of defiance in various societies to disrupt established order.”
He found plenty: the Industrial Revolution, that Dickensian soap opera of soot and suppression; the World Wars, where jackboots and jingoism danced a macabre gavotte; and the digital age, where algorithms now do the gaslighting with greater efficiency and less paperwork. “The mechanisms of control haven’t changed,” Gers says. “Only the tools — and the T&Cs.”
And then there was the golden loo. In a moment of surreality that could only have happened in Trump’s America, in 2017 the Museum of Modern Art offered the White House Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's solid gold working toilet in lieu of a requested Van Gogh. This porcelain provocation clearly lodged in Gers’ mind like a rogue almond mistakenly swallowed with that democracie de la creme. “Only later it turned out these ideas had historic precedents — I learnt during my research that after Napoleon's 1815 defeat, chamber pots with caricatures of his face and slogans like 'The enemy of mankind' were produced in the UK and Germany and widely sold in Europe.”
The resulting project took four years, untold kilns and a pilgrimage to Stoke-on-Trent — the Lourdes of lavatories — in search of the perfect cobalt blue. The colours echo those found on 18th-century Chinese export porcelain, loved by colonial mantels and ironic dining rooms. And the etchings, done in collaboration with the Ellalou O’Meara, a printmaker forged in the crucible of Antwerp in the 1960s, add a layer of historical gravitas that might, in less capable hands, have felt arch.
What we're left with is a series of exquisite works that are equally expletive. These aren't toilets to poo in, they're to be pondered — essays in fired earth like furious Rorschach blots of rebellion.
Gers isn’t calling out dictators — he’s inviting them to sit down and reflect. Literally. He calls Covid “the authoritarian virus,” and it’s not hard to see why. The pandemic, for all its apocalyptic realness, provided a perfect Petri dish for control: trackable, enforceable and marinated in moral panic. Gers’ point, eloquently smuggled through glaze and grit, is that when panic meets power, the result isn’t always policy — sometimes it’s punishment. What’s flushed in the name of order may well be freedom.
These toilets are beautiful, and they're funny. But above all, they are serious — more serious than most speeches, more moving than most manifestos. They ask you to sit with discomfort as they dare to suggest that what we discard says as much about us as what we display. It's a call to revolution in porcelain. Just don’t call it a throne.
SIDEBAR: Q&A with Mervyn Gers
There’s a long history of satire in protest art. How do you see ceramics — a medium often associated with function and domesticity — holding its own as a vehicle for political critique?
Although ceramics is traditionally associated with function and domesticity, it possesses a unique subversive power when repurposed for political critique. Its familiarity and tactile nature invite immediate connection, while its permanence contrasts sharply with the fleeting nature of protest. When used satirically, ceramics can juxtapose fragility with resilience, transforming everyday objects into sharp commentaries on social and political issues. Like graffiti reclaims public spaces, ceramics reclaim the familiar and the functional to provoke thought and challenge norms. Its capacity to endure — both physically and symbolically — ensures that its message can outlast the moment, standing as a lasting testament to resistance and critique.
Collaborating with Ellalou O'Meara , how did the dialogue between your artistic practices evolve during the making of the work?
Ellalou's intricate etching techniques infuse each piece with rich layers of storytelling. With decades of experience in printmaking, she collaborated closely with me through every stage of the process. Dump on Trump is the culmination of experimentation, rigorous colour testing, and meticulous attention to detail. Mastering the unique challenges of slow firing, integrating mediums like 24-carat gold lustre and on-glaze silkscreen printing, and executing the work on such a large scale required exceptional skill. Given that pigments can shift in the kiln, we conducted hundreds of tests to achieve the precise tonalities and sharp definition necessary, ensuring flat transfer images could be flawlessly applied to curved surfaces.
Some of the pieces are visually humorous, even absurd — but the subtext is serious. How do you balance humour with outrage in this exhibition?
Political satire has long used humour to expose uncomfortable truths — a tradition we embrace. Beneath the wit lies a sharp, unapologetic message. Humour disarms, inviting engagement with challenging political critiques while that might otherwise be difficult to confront. This balance allows outrage to be conveyed with impact — softening the blow enough to spark reflection without diluting the message.
What kind of response do you hope the exhibition provokes? Discomfort? Laughter? Reflection? Or perhaps all three?
All three. I want it to challenge viewers, make them laugh, and, most importantly, inspire deeper thinking about what’s happening in the world.
The first Dump on Dictators toilet in Mervyn Gers’ series — featuring themes from India, Russia, China, Turkey, and more — depicts Donald Trump and will be auctioned online by Stephan Welz & Co. on Wednesday, June 18. For more information, please click here.
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