NEW YORK — A mystery has circulated the art world for nearly a decade: Who bought that strange, artist-created toilet?
And it’s not just any vase — it’s made from 100 kilos of solid 18-karat gold. It even works if you call a plumber to install it.
It turns out that one of the richest men in America has owned it all along: Steven Cohen, the billionaire who also owns the New York Mets baseball team. Cohen would have purchased the gold toilet, created as a sculpture by conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, in an art gallery in 2017. On November 18, it will be auctioned, with a starting bid of around US$10 million, approximately R$53 million. Five experts with knowledge of the deal, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter, said Cohen is the consignor.
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The gold toilet resurfaced last week at auction house Sotheby’s with a press release highlighting how Cattelan created the golden toilet as a sculpture in 2016 and named it “America.” Sotheby’s will sell Cohen’s work during its fall evening contemporary art auction, hoping to generate a similar buzz to what Cattelan attracted last year at Sotheby’s — . This year’s main auction will be at the company’s new Manhattan headquarters in the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue.
Cohen is said to have purchased Cattelan’s gold toilet at the Marian Goodman Gallery. Sotheby’s declined to comment on the identity of the seller, and a spokesperson for Marian Goodman Gallery declined to discuss a private transaction. A representative for Cohen did not respond to questions.
For the price of Cattelan’s sculpture, you could buy 100,000 single-flush toilets at Home Depot, where one made of heavy-duty porcelain costs about $100.
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Cohen is president and CEO of Point72, an asset management firm he founded. The company has grown in recent years, having made investments in entertainment, military technology and pharmaceuticals.
He has a sizable art collection and is known for purchasing other post-war artworks that combine provocative humor and political commentary, such as Jasper Johns’ seminal 1958 painting “Flag,” based on the U.S. flag, which was reportedly sold in a private transaction in 2010. He is also the alleged owner of a sculpture of a shark suspended in formaldehyde, created by Damien Hirst in 1991.
While Sotheby’s has downplayed the identity of the toilet’s owner, the company has explored extensively the scandalous story behind the toilet.
Cattelan originally produced two editions of the 18-karat gold toilet bowl. Cohen had one; the other was exhibited in 2016 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. In a dig at the Trump administration, when White House officials requested the loan of a Vincent van Gogh painting to decorate the president’s private quarters, the museum offered its version of Cattelan’s vase instead.
In 2019, while that vase was on loan to Blenheim Palace in England, it disappeared. Thieves took it, leaving behind a small flood. The sculpture was never recovered, although the thieves were prosecuted. Two men were found guilty by a jury this year; another person was acquitted of the crime.
Thus, Cohen’s version of the golden toilet is the last surviving example.
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The golden vase will build on the popularity of Cattelan’s latest sculpture to be auctioned. His duct-taped banana surpassed expectations when it sold for $6.2 million last year at Sotheby’s to cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun. Auction experts believe the banana’s reputation will attract more crypto elites to the golden toilet.
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