With his bathroom in a suitcase, MK Kahne has turned the most utilitarian dreams of wandering wayfarers into reality. Not just any old utility, this is a sexy, transportable washroom which could have been designed for Maxwell Smart, complete with dismountable plumbing that packs neatly away in the leather cases lining the length of the back rim and base. Housed in a dark, glossy mahogany case somewhat like a giant double bass case, it has a lid extending up to accommodate the shower and circular piping for the curtain.
At the newly renovated and expanded Rontgen Kunstraum, this masculine Sea Breeze bathroom, complete with a shiny chrome shaving mirror and fully operational plumbing, is a fully movable urban dream. When you see it, you will want to become the kind of person who would own such an object: unfettered, stylish and free. A fetish object, it stimulates the same sense of desire that Coke and Calvin Klein underwear ads do.
In fact, it looks like a prototype, ready for production. But both the artist, a tall, pensive Lithuanian who exploded onto the international art scene after being discovered at the recent Basil Art Fair, and his Berlin gallerist Rafael Vostell emphatically deny that it will ever be manufactured.