Cattelan's Gilded Throne Stalls at Sotheby's, Fetches a Muted $12.1 Million

2 hours ago7 min read1 comments

Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘America,’ an 18-karat gold toilet, was poised to be a blockbuster at Sotheby's, a provocative statement on wealth and art. Yet the auction culminated not in a tidal wave of bids, but in a slow drip of indifference.The final hammer price of $12. 1 million, while a fortune by any normal measure, landed with a dull thud in the high-stakes art world.For a full, excruciating minute, the auctioneer's chant was met with a profound silence that spoke volumes. This was not the explosive finale anticipated for a work once installed in the Guggenheim's restroom and infamously stolen from Blenheim Palace in an unsolved heist.The 2016 piece is a masterclass in Cattelan's signature satire, holding a funhouse mirror to excess, value, and utility. It forces a confrontation: What is the price of a joke? When does a symbol of ultimate opulence become a common denominator? The tepid bidding suggests the art world's appetite for such high-concept pranks may be waning, or that the joke's punchline has finally been delivered.While its theft in 2019 added a layer of true-crime drama to its mythology, that narrative failed to ignite a bidding war under the auction room's harsh lights. The sale stands in stark contrast to the frenzy around ‘Comedian,’ the artist's duct-taped banana, a perishable sensation that ‘America,’ in its solid, immutable gold, could not replicate.The result is a paradox: an object of immense material value whose conceptual impact appears to have, for now, been flushed. The event feels less like a triumph and more like a quiet punctuation mark, a moment the market paused and decided the prankster's throne had lost its luster.

#Maurizio Cattelan

#America

#golden toilet

#art auction

#Sotheby's

#contemporary art

#featured

Stay Informed. Act Smarter.

Get weekly highlights, major headlines, and expert insights — then put your knowledge to work in our live prediction markets.

Comments

Loading comments...