Italian avant-garde artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “America” toilet is a fully functional piece identical to the one that was famously stolen from Blenheim Palace in England in 2019.
Sotheby’s auction house announced in late October that it will auction a solid gold toilet by Cattelan, titled “America,” according to the AP.
The toilet is fully functional and matches the one that was stolen in 2019. The auction on November 18 in New York will start with a price based on the 101.2 kilograms of gold used to create it, valued at about $10 million.
Sotheby’s New York contemporary art department head described Cattelan as “the best provocateur in the art world.” His artwork “Comic,” a banana taped to a wall, sold for $6.2 million last year.
Cattelan noted that “America” mocks excessive wealth.
“Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same in the toilet,” he said. Two versions of “America” were created in 2016. The one up for auction has been with a collector since 2017.
The other was displayed in a Guggenheim Museum bathroom in New York in 2016, attracting over 100,000 visitors.
The Guggenheim offered it to President Donald Trump during his first term when he requested a Van Gogh painting from the museum.
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