2025-11-06
In 2016, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City offered its visitors the opportunity to use a golden toilet installed in one of the lavatories on the building's fifth floor. Over 100,000 people queued up for it.
The author of this fully functional sculpture, titled ‘America’, was none other than Maurizio Cattelan, who, with his work – in particular the banana installation 'Comedian' and the sculpture of John Paul II 'La Nona Ora’ – proves that even today, artists can still provoke controversy that is widely reported in the media around the world. Unfortunately, in 2019, ‘America’ was stolen and possibly melted down.
At the end of October this year, however, Sotheby's brought it back to life by announcing that it would auction off its only surviving edition.
It is on this occasion that we will see Cattelan do what he does best, which is playing with the art market. The starting price of the object – the initial, lowest possible price – will depend on the price of gold at the time of the bidding.
Putting the gold toilet seat up for auction feels like the next chapter of the ‘Comedian’ story, to recall the banana that the crypto-businessman Justin Sun purchased (and consumed) for $6 million last November. Whatever buyers do with Cattelan's works, one thing is certain: the artist knows exactly how to expose the absurdities of the market.