The hopes for one of the past decade’s most controversial artworks achieving a record price circled on the drain at Sotheby’s on Tuesday evening. Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-karat gold toilet, owned by Steve Cohen, fetched just $12.1 million (inclusive of fees) after one bid.
The ninth lot of the house’s “The Now & Contemporary” sale, Cattelan’s America (2016)—the fully functional toilet—hammered for $10 million. The work, which weighs just over 100 kilograms and contains roughly 2,440 ounces of gold (worth $9.9 million as of Monday evening), came to auction with a starting bid pegged to the value of its metal alone. Bidding started at an even $10 million and sold quickly to the first bidder; its final price rose to just above its worth in gold because of fees.
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The consignor was revealed last week to Cohen, who owns the New York Mets owner and acquired the piece from Marian Goodman Gallery in 2017. Sotheby’s confirmed ahead of the sale that the work did not carry an irrevocable bid, or a guarantee, and that cryptocurrency would be accepted for payment by the winning bidder.
Before hitting the block, the sculpture was installed inside a bathroom at Sotheby’s new Breuer Building headquarters, where visitors were invited to view it one-by-one. Unlike earlier installations, the toilet was strictly off-limits for use.
America has a long and improbable history. One of only two fabricated examples of the edition of three plus two artist proofs, the work debuted in a functioning bathroom at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2016, where more than 100,000 people queued for their turn. The second version of the work, exhibited at Blenheim Palace in 2019, was stolen in an infamous smash-and-grab and has never been recovered—leaving Cohen’s example as the only extant version.
David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, called the toilet “among Cattelan’s most iconic and influential works,” adding that it “perfectly encapsulates the artist’s career-long interest in value, absurdity, and institutional critique.”
Cattelan’s current auction record, made at Christie’s New York in 2016 when his sculpture of a tiny kneeling Adolf Hitler, titled, Him (2011) sold for $17.2 million, still stands.
