In November, just as summer’s heat and sun finished adding a few new lines to my face, George Stoll’s show at Dan Bernier Gallery turned up the heat for one last blistering. As with previous work, such as his re-rendering of fast-food wrappers, Stoll’s investigations into waste disposal are central to this new series. This work goes straight to the literal end. Entitled “Toilet Paper,” it is just that, in all its glory. Stoll understands America’s glorification of waste and has decided to preserve it in art.
I first realized that my country elevated toilet paper to a product worthy of worship eight years ago when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Papua, New Guinea. During my two years in the Pacific, I harbored this secret, knowing that my place was so developed that everyone from the hysterically rich to the brutally poor could wipe with the world’s softest, strongest, scented, double-ply toilet paper. This ridiculous developed state doesn’t come easy, though. Difficult decisions have to be made, allegiances sworn, jingles hummed. This was and is my America. Walking into Stoll’s show brought back all my fecal adventures, desperate and comic. Maybe he did not have to use a coconut husk squatting at the end of a narrow wharf over the open ocean, use pages of an old Newsweek in a pit latrine or pages from paperback novels you would not recommend to friends. Even so, Stoll has seen the light and I know I’m not alone.
Each piece in “Toilet Paper” is entitled Untitled, with actual product names in parentheses. The show features over 50 pieces (drawings on vellum, alkyd on canvas, and sculptural work) all of which quietly burn with the truth of absurdity. Toilet paper is King! The drawings on vellum are done in colored pencil representing single sheets of different varieties of toilet paper. This work floats in its minimal sensibility, “angel soft” to the eye. The alkyd paintings on raw canvas pair two sheet-size squares with a toilet-paper-thickness of paint in classic toilet-paper colors: pinks, baby blues, and lovely creams. The paint is then textured with motifs including roses, swans, and geometric shapes, standards of the trade. From the sterile canvas these T.P. specimens lift off with their double ply, inviting a caress. 
The sculptural work consists of bathroom still-lifes brought in from the stench. Small groupings line two of the gallery walls on shelves. Stoll’s open rolls, most constructed of silk made to look like paper, nestle up to his unopened rolls proclaiming their “strength.” Stoll executes the package design and text in acrylic and colored pencil. In the center of the gallery, there are also bigger groupings on pedestals, small shrines to the glory of strength and softness: powerful delicacy. Untitled (Scott Tissue) is a stack of individually wrapped rolls, each consisting of a pine core and a silk outer wrapper with all the package design details done in colored pencil. The inventory stands basking in its abilities. Each roll boasts superiority with “1000 Sheets,” “Easy Start Roll,” “Lasts Longer.” There’s an 800 number for questions and comments—our every need attended to. This piece screams “Buy This! It’s the BEST!” In Untitled (Super Soft) a complete package of rolls in their plastic wrap is monumental. The rolls are pine-cored with textured aluminum “paper” painted a dull white. Stoll neatly wrapped the set in plastic and painted it with an insipid bouquet of flowers to draw you in before you toss the package in the cart. Another notable piece is Untitled (Springfield) ,a wonderfully soft grouping of rolls. Stoll uses silk and cotton flannel quilted together with delicate hand-stitching to achieve maximum squeezability.
We all have our preferences and brand-name loyalties, even with the most mundane products. We are manipulated and teased into affinities that verge on the insane for “nice and soft” things. Stoll knows and effectively communicates this disturbing fact. The strength of the work comes from its ability to stand up to the real thing and come away victorious. None of this work will be flushed anytime soon.
Garret Keith

Los Angeles

November 20, 1995

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