One year after Sotheby’s drew global attention with the $6.2m sale of Maurizo Cattelan’s Comedian (2019)—a banana duct-taped to a wall—the artist and the auction house are set to make a splash again. Sotheby's will offer an edition of the artist’s fully functioning gold toilet, America (2016), during its evening auction of contemporary art in New York on 18 November.
Bidding for the work—crafted from solid 18-karat gold and modeled after a standard Kohler toilet—will begin at the current market value of the gold used in the sculpture, estimated at around $10m based on its weight, according to Sotheby’s. (That valuation may fluctuate between now and the date of the sale as the price of gold has been whizzing up lately.) During the auction preview (8-17 November), America will be installed in a loo at Sotheby's new Breuer Building headquarters. Visitors will be allowed inside one at a time for a close-up viewing, but will not be permitted to use the toilet.
If America goes well beyond its $10m estimate, it could become number one on his list of all-time auction results. If it surpasses its estimate but falls short of the $15.2m ($17.2m with fees) fetched by Him (2001)—Cattelan's hyperrealist sculpture of a diminutive, kneeling Adolf Hitler—at a Christie's sale in New York in 2016, it will be number two.
Sotheby’s notes that this version of America is the only surviving edition. Another was installed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where more than 100,000 visitors used it during its year-long display. That edition was later moved to Blenheim Palace in the UK in 2019, where it was stolen just two days after installation. Two men were convicted in connection with the theft earlier this year, and investigators believe the toilet was melted down and destroyed.
Created in 2016—the same year Donald Trump won his first US presidential election—the work’s title and gold material have led to interpretations connecting it with American politics and excess. Cattelan has said that he did not anticipate Trump’s rise when conceiving the piece; he first proposed the sculpture in mid-2015, shortly after Trump announced his candidacy. When the White House later requested to borrow Vincent van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow (1888) from the Guggenheim, curator Nancy Spector declined and offered America instead, a proposal the White House did not accept.
Cattelan has described the sculpture's Trump connection as “another layer” of meaning, adding that “it shouldn’t be the only one”. Like Comedian, America is often interpreted as a reflection on wealth and power, poking fun at the absurdities of the art market and the wealthy patrons who drive it. Next month, one of those patrons could plunk down a serious wad of money to take home this singular trophy.
