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- Solid gold toilet named ‘America’ sells at auction for $12M (abcnews.go.com)
Golden Throne Sells for King’s Ransom: An 18-Karat Commode Fetches Over $12 Million
New York, NY – In a truly head-turning auction, an 18-karat gold working toilet sculpture, aptly titled “America” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, sold Tuesday evening for a staggering $12,110,000, according to Sotheby’s.
The opulent 223-pound commode, first crafted in 2016, recently made a public appearance at the Breuer Building, where art enthusiasts were invited to experience one-on-one viewings before its highly anticipated sale. This golden lavatory is one of only three created by the conceptual artist.
“America” initially gained notoriety at the Guggenheim Museum, where an estimated 100,000 people queued for what Sotheby’s described as “the most luxurious bathroom break in art history.” The artwork later made headlines of a different sort when another version was brazenly stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019. The recently sold piece is now the sole remaining version of this provocative sculpture.
Sotheby’s noted the piece’s starting bid was pegged at the approximate value of its gold content, around $10 million, prompting the intriguing question: “where does value end and irony begin?”
Lucius Elliott, head of Contemporary Art Marquee Auctions at Sotheby’s, offered insights into the artwork’s profound nature. “It looks like a toilet, but it also looks nothing like a toilet you have ever seen,” Elliott explained in a Sotheby’s profile.
“It is this glimmering, hulking, gluttonous mass of gold. You see yourself in it, you see the water in it, you see the movement, it’s like a mirror of the most decadent sort imaginable.”
Elliott further elaborated on the unique aspect of the work, stating, “That is what is so fascinating about this work, because unlike pretty much any artwork, this has a material value. This is a European artist making a portrait of America. America in all its decadence, in all its beauty, in all its nouveau naffness, and in all its total dominion over the entire Western world.”
Maurizio Cattelan, born in Padua, Italy, in 1960, is celebrated as one of his generation’s most acclaimed conceptual artists. A self-taught artist who began his career as a furniture maker, Cattelan’s early works often challenged the conventions of the art world, earning him a reputation as a conceptual “enfant terrible.”
Cattelan previously garnered significant public attention and went viral for another unconventional project: a banana duct-taped to a wall, titled “Comedian,” which Sotheby’s sold in 2024 for $6,240,000. Justin Sun, founder of the cryptocurrency platform TRON, purchased “Comedian,” calling it “a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,” and even announced his intention to personally consume the banana as part of the artistic experience.
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- Solid gold toilet named ‘America’ sells at auction for $12M (abcnews.go.com)