A new art installation, America by artist Maurizio Cattelan, has taken audience participation to new (and kind of gross) levels. The 18-karat, solid-gold, fully plumbed-in toilet, unveiled today at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, will be used by visitors to the gallery for exactly the purpose you’d expect a toilet to be used for.
It will be guarded round the clock by security guards and will be cleaned with specially made wipes every fifteen minutes. The artist has described the piece as “one-percent art for the ninety-nine percent.”
A blog post published by the Guggenheim explains that America offers an “intimate experience,” that due to its function as a working toilet, “speaks quite dramatically about [the art work's] own value.” The article also suggests a very specific nod to a certain billionaire Presidential candidate, potentially the only American politician to personally own a solid gold (bathroom) throne. The Guggenheim has not reveiled how much the very private public sculpture is worth.
