{"id":115655,"date":"2025-11-03T13:44:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115655\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:44:20","slug":"maurizio-cattelans-gold-toilet-can-soon-be-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/115655\/","title":{"rendered":"Maurizio Cattelan\u2019s Gold Toilet Can Soon Be Yours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exactly one year after \u201cComedian\u201d (2019), the cursed banana duct-taped to the wall, went under the hammer at Sotheby\u2019s and down Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun\u2019s gullet<\/a> for a whopping $6.2 million<\/a>, Maurizio Cattelan returns like clockwork to play in our faces once again. <\/p>\n

Cattelan\u2019s functional, 18-karat gold toilet \u201cAmerica\u201d (2016) will lead Sotheby\u2019s \u201cThe Now and Contemporary\u201d evening sale on November 18, with starting bids expected at around $10.2 million on account of the toilet weighing in at just over 223lbs (101.2kg).<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s is set to ring in its debut in its new headquarters at Manhattan\u2019s Breuer Building on November 8 with the pre-auction display of \u201cAmerica\u201d in one of its restrooms. While designed to be fully operational, the toilet is only available in one-to-one viewing sessions with visitors through the 17th, and nobody is permitted to use it for its intended purpose this time around.<\/p>\n

The initial iteration of the work had been installed in the restroom of the Guggenheim Museum<\/a> in Manhattan, allowing museum visitors to wait up to several hours to relieve themselves in it like they would with any other commode (save for some security and maintenance restrictions). During the onset of Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration and first presidency, Cattelan\u2019s topical multi-million dollar sculpture drew criticism and trolling<\/a> from every corner \u2014 from yarn-bombing the work<\/a> onsite at the Guggenheim to the museum\u2019s then-Chief Curator Nancy Spector offering to loan the work to the Trumps<\/a> for its display in the White House in lieu of their initial request to borrow a Vincent van Gogh painting. <\/p>\n

In 2019, \u201cAmerica\u201d made headlines yet again after it was stolen from the Blenheim Palace<\/a> in Oxfordshire, England, while on loan to the mansion and birthplace of Winston Churchill for a solo exhibition of Cattelan\u2019s works. The original toilet was never recovered, though two men were sentenced<\/a> this year for their involvement with the heist. <\/p>\n

Now, the second edition of \u201cAmerica,\u201d timed with Trump\u2019s second term, returns to ruffle feathers in Cattelan\u2019s continued mission to abuse the public<\/a> while he questions how people ascribe value to objects and ideas and critiques the broader art market\u2019s priorities \u2014 especially now that some 40 million vulnerable Americans are threatened with profound food insecurity<\/a> amid the ongoing government shutdown. <\/p>\n

Spector was right to offer the toilet up to Donald and Melania instead of a van Gogh painting, because there couldn\u2019t possibly be a better home for it than the forthcoming ballroom that gobbled up the White House\u2019s East Wing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exactly one year after \u201cComedian\u201d (2019), the cursed banana duct-taped to the wall, went under the hammer at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,36883,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-115655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-maurizio-cattelan","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}