When I first started learning about contemporary art, Pop ruled. There was a wicked humor in Pop that was subversively accessible — taking the imagery of recognizable objects, often consumer products, and liberating them from their “official” meaning. It seemed both radical and fun in an ironic, distancing way.   

One of the stranger artworks on display at Contemporary Art Center’s current Where Do We Go From Here: Selections From La Coleccion Jumex is a urinal. It is seemingly ready to use, planted right out in the open on a gallery wall. If not for the fact that on close inspection it is too sculptural and painterly to have any functional purpose, it might actually get used.