Maurizio Cattelan's Golden Toilet Heads to Auction.

2 days ago7 min read

Move over, red carpets and celebrity breakups, because the art world is serving up a scandalous spectacle that would make even the most jaded socialite do a double-take. Maurizio Cattelan, the maestro of mischievous art, is sending his infamous golden toilet, aptly titled ‘America’, to the auction block, and the starting price is pure, unadulterated drama—it will be determined by its weight in gold.This isn't just a sale; it's a full-blown cultural moment, a glittering, provocative statement piece that first made waves in 2016 when it was installed in a pristine, functional bathroom at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, offering visitors a truly immersive, and frankly hilarious, artistic experience where they could literally use a work of art valued at millions. Imagine the conversations, the selfies, the sheer audacity of it all! The piece, a fully functional 18-karat gold toilet, quickly became a symbol of excess, inequality, and the absurdity of the art market, a throne for the one percent that was also, paradoxically, accessible to every museum-goer.Its journey, however, has been anything but pristine; it was famously at the center of a political firestorm when the Guggenheim, in a legendary act of art-world pettiness, offered it to the Trump White House as a loan to replace a requested Van Gogh, and it was later stolen in a dramatic 2019 heist from Blenheim Palace in the UK, where it was plumbed into Winston Churchill's birthplace, a context that added layers of historical and political irony to its already loaded presence. While the toilet was eventually recovered, though reportedly damaged, its upcoming auction is less about the object itself and more about the aura of notoriety and conversation it commands.In an art market currently obsessed with blue-chip names and speculative investments, Cattelan’s toilet is the ultimate luxury good, a cheeky middle finger to convention that questions the very nature of value, utility, and desire. Will a tech billionaire buy it as the ultimate bathroom centerpiece? Will a museum acquire it as a testament to contemporary conceptual art? Or will it vanish into a private, anonymous vault, its story forever entwined with theft, politics, and pure, liquid gold? This auction is the art world’s equivalent of a season finale cliffhanger, and the entire glitterati is waiting with bated breath to see who will ultimately flush their cash on this golden throne.

#Maurizio Cattelan

#America

#golden toilet

#art auction

#contemporary art

#sculpture

#featured

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