In 2016, the contemporary art world welcomed a work that was unusual, to say the least: América, a functional toilet made entirely of 18-carat gold, designed by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Three years later, the work was stolen from an English palace. A look back at the history of the world’s most expensive throne!
A golden throne for biting satire
America was a sculpture in the shape of a fully functional solid gold toilet. Composed of 103 kilos of gold, its metal value today would be around €10 million!
Proposed as a participatory art piece, it was installed in a bathroom at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and visitors could literally sit there and relieve themselves. Beyond the astonishment and fascination, América carried an acerbic message, reflecting the contradictions of our times.
Gold, luxury and the absurd
As is often the case with Cattelan, the work plays on contrasts. Here, an everyday, trivial object, a symbol of intimacy and sometimes shame, is transformed into an artefact of extreme wealth. This is not just an aesthetic provocation: América embodies a scathing critique of capitalism, ostentation and the illusion of grandeur. The very title of the work, evocative of a distorted American dream, suggests a satire of the culture of excess and consumerism.
The artist claimed that it was “the art of the 1% for the other 99%”. – meaning art by the richest people on the planet for everyone else!
A toilet offered to Donald Trump
In September 2017, the White House asked the Guggenheim Museum in New York for the loan of a Van Gogh painting for Donald Trump’s private flats. The museum refused but offered to lend America without ever getting a response from the White House!
It has to be said that America could also be an evocation of Donald Trump’s career, recalling the gilding of the President’s real estate projects and private residences. Without denying this meaning, the artist has never confirmed it, stating that the link with Trump “is another aspect, but it should not be the only one”.
An incredible robbery worthy of a film
But América didn’t just make its mark for its form or its message. In September 2019, while it was installed in the toilets of Blenheim Palace in England, the work was stolen. The well-organised thieves ripped out the toilets in the middle of the night, causing extensive damage to the building’s historic pipes. The spectacular act made headlines in many media around the world. Cattelan, true to his black humour, declared: “I’ve always loved heist films and at last I’m in one of them”.
A few months later, when Maurizio Cattelan was suspected of having organised the robbery himself, the Generali insurance company teamed up with him for a promotional campaign for an insurance policy dedicated to collectors!
Since that day, América has never been found. Some think it was melted down to sell its gold, others imagine it lies in the secret collection of an art lover as wealthy as he is deviant.
A masterpiece of irony and subversion
Maurizio Cattelan, known for his provocative works such as the Pope crushed by a meteorite (La Nona Ora) or the famous banana-scotch (Comedian), signs with América a brilliant manifesto of social derision. It questions our relationship to value, art, power and decadence.
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