Exactly one year after “Comedian” (2019), the cursed banana duct-taped to the wall, went under the hammer at Sotheby’s and down Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s gullet for a whopping $6.2 million, Maurizio Cattelan returns like clockwork to play in our faces once again.
Cattelan’s functional, 18-karat gold toilet “America” (2016) will lead Sotheby’s “The Now and Contemporary” 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).
Sotheby’s is set to ring in its debut in its new headquarters at Manhattan’s Breuer Building on November 8 with the pre-auction display of “America” 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.
The initial iteration of the work had been installed in the restroom of the Guggenheim Museum 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’s inauguration and first presidency, Cattelan’s topical multi-million dollar sculpture drew criticism and trolling from every corner — from yarn-bombing the work onsite at the Guggenheim to the museum’s then-Chief Curator Nancy Spector offering to loan the work to the Trumps for its display in the White House in lieu of their initial request to borrow a Vincent van Gogh painting.
In 2019, “America” made headlines yet again after it was stolen from the Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, while on loan to the mansion and birthplace of Winston Churchill for a solo exhibition of Cattelan’s works. The original toilet was never recovered, though two men were sentenced this year for their involvement with the heist.
Now, the second edition of “America,” timed with Trump’s second term, returns to ruffle feathers in Cattelan’s continued mission to abuse the public while he questions how people ascribe value to objects and ideas and critiques the broader art market’s priorities — especially now that some 40 million vulnerable Americans are threatened with profound food insecurity amid the ongoing government shutdown.
Spector was right to offer the toilet up to Donald and Melania instead of a van Gogh painting, because there couldn’t possibly be a better home for it than the forthcoming ballroom that gobbled up the White House’s East Wing.
