Toilets Made From Pure Gold By Italian Artists Sold For IDR 200 Billion

JAKARTA - Italian artists' pure gold toilets sold at a fantastic price of more than Rp200 billion in auction, according to Sotheby's.

The 18-carat pure gold toilet, named 'America' by Italian artist Maurizio Cattunja, sold for $12,110,000 on Tuesday night, quoted by ABC News November 21.

The 223-pound toilet was first built in 2016, and has been installed in the Breuer Building this month, where visitors can enjoy a hands-on viewing experience before auction, according to Sotheby's YouTube channel.

This gold toilet is one of three works by Cattana, according to the Sotheby's website.

"The first time it was inaugurated at the Guggenheim Museum, where more than 100,000 people queued up to enjoy the most luxurious toilets in art history, America became a global sensation and later, made headlines in real crime cases when another version was stolen from the Blenheim Palace in 2019. The present work is the only remaining version of the statue," reads Sotheby's YouTube page.

Lucius Elliott, head of Marquee's Contemporary Art Auction in Sotheby's, said the toilet was a mirror for its visitors.

"It looks like a toilet, but also not at all like the toilet you've ever seen. It's a sparkling, huge, greedy lump of gold. You look at yourself in it, you see the water in it, you see its movement, it's like the most decades-long mirror you can imagine," Elliott said in Sotheby's profile for the work.

"That's what's so interesting about this work, because unlike most other works of art, this work has material value," he continued.

"This is a European artist painting a portrait of America. America in all its decades, in all its beauty, in all its new behavior, and in all its total dominance over the whole Western world."

According to Sotheby's, Cattunese is one of the most famous conceptual artists in the world.

"Catalan was born in 1960 in Padua, Italy, and is now one of the most famous artists of its generation. As an autodididak artist, he worked as a furniture maker before starting his art career in 1989. Most of Cattana's early works highlighted the personality and convention of the art world, making him a conceptual terrestrial fan," reads Sotheby's press release.

Cattunja previously went viral because of another project sold by Sotheby's in 2024 for 6,240,000 S dollars, in the form of bananas attached to walls with duct tape, entitled "Comedian," according to a press release from Sotheby's.

Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform TRON, bought the artwork.

"This is not just an art work; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the art world, memes and the cryptocurrency community," Sun said in a press release announcing his purchase of "Comedian."

"In addition, in the coming days, I personally will eat bananas as part of this unique artistic experience, respecting its place in the history of popular art and culture," he added.