David Hammons is a seminal American artist, whose practice has long engaged with the art historical traditions of dada, the materials of arte povera, and the African-American experience. His earliest works in the 1970s include a series of body prints, rendered with margarine and loose pigments on paper. This approach to material has carried through to a robust sculpture and assemblage practice that embraces the use of animal products and byproducts, elements of the human body, and consumable goods. Hammons imbues the used, discarded, and profane with a sense of sanctity. In doing so, he honors the human experience, and elevates the trappings of everyday life.

Toilet Tree exists in a direct dialogue with Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain , a foundational work in the history of conceptual art. Hammons acknowledges this kinship, as noted in the Sotheby’s catalog for the sale of the work in 2017, where the artist quipped “I'm the C.E.O. of the D.O.C.—the Duchamp Outpatient Clinic.”

Hammons’ work has been included in exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; and Wiels Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels among many others. In 2021, with support from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Hammons’ monumental homage to the late architectonic artist Gordon Matta-Clark, Day’s End, was permanently installed in New York City’s Hudson River Park along the southern edge of Gansevoort Peninsula.