A functioning gold toilet identical to one once used to troll Donald Trump has fetched $12.1 million at auction in New York. The artwork, called “America,” was one of two 18-karat thrones created in 2016 by the conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, who is best known for another conceptual piece involving a banana taped to a wall. Bidding for the golden toilet at Sotheby’s on Tuesday night started at $9.9 million, the market price of the 2,440 ounces of gold used, and the hammer came down after just one bid at $10 million, rising by $2.1 million after fees, ARTNews reports. The successful bidder has not been named, but the piece was consigned by the billionaire owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen, according to Artnet. Explaining the concept behind the work, Cattelan said, “Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise.” Sotheby’s was more refined, describing the posh potty as an “incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value,” the New York Post reports. Its sister edition was installed in the Guggenheim in New York City, before it was loaned for an exhibition in the U.K. in 2019, where it was stolen. Two men were jailed, but the toilet itself was never found. In 2017, Trump’s White House asked the Guggenheim to loan it “Landscape with Snow” by Vincent van Gogh. The gallery refused and instead offered it the now-stolen golden throne.
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