Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan has made a career out of turning the art world on its head — and this fall, one of his most gleaming provocations will take center stage (or perhaps center stall) at Sotheby’s in New York.
On November 18, the auction house will offer "America," a fully functional toilet crafted from more than 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of solid 18-karat gold. Its starting bid will literally be worth its weight in gold — roughly $10 million based on today’s market.
If the piece sounds familiar, it’s because America first made headlines when Cattelan invited visitors to use an earlier version during its 2016 installation at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Museumgoers queued for hours to experience what curators described as “unprecedented intimacy with a work of art.” More than 100,000 people reportedly took part, proving that luxury plumbing can indeed draw a crowd.
The toilet’s glittering commentary on excess and equality (“This is one-percent art for the 99 percent,” Cattelan once quipped) took a darker turn three years later when that original gold commode was stolen from Blenheim Palace — Winston Churchill’s birthplace — only two days after it opened to the public. The theft caused flooding in the historic landmark, as the thieves wrenched the piece from its plumbing before dawn and sped away in a Volkswagen Golf.
At the time, Blenheim Art Foundation founder Edward Spencer-Churchill had pooh-poohed the idea that the toilet needed guarding, noting that “it’s plumbed in and too difficult to steal.” In hindsight, his confidence was misplaced. While two men have since been convicted of the audacious heist, the golden toilet itself was never recovered and is widely believed to have been melted down.
Now, a second casting from the same 2016 edition — one of only three ever made — is emerging from private hands for the first time. Sotheby’s New York will display the shimmering sculpture in a working bathroom at its new Breuer Building headquarters, though unlike the Guggenheim installation, visitors won’t be allowed to take it for a spin.
“This is Maurizio Cattelan’s tour de force,” said David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. “Holding both a proverbial and literal mirror to the art world, the work confronts the most uncomfortable questions about art, and the belief systems held sacred to the institutions of the market and the museum.”
Cattelan, ever the art-world prankster, is also famous for "Comedian" — a banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $6.2 million — and "Him," a kneeling sculpture of Adolf Hitler that fetched $17.2 million. But America might be the 65-year-old's most layered satire yet, a glittering mash-up of high art and bathroom humor that invites us to question how the value of art should be measured.
So, will a collector bid for glory — or just for gold? Either way, when the hammer falls on November 18, Cattelan’s golden throne is sure to make headlines once again.
Credit: Image courtesy of Sotheby's.