Visitors are invited to use the solid gold toilet just as they would any other facility
A New York City museum is offering visitors a chance to sit on a golden throne, but only in private. As part of his “America” exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan replaced the toilet in the museum’s fourth-floor restroom with a fully functional replica cast in 18-karat gold.
Viewers are invited to use the solid gold toilet just as they would any other facility.
It’s the first piece Cattelan has exhibited since his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim. It opens on Friday.
Queues quickly formed as scribes bursting with excitement hopped from foot to foot while waiting to use it.
The New Yorker called it “drop dead beautiful”, NPR said it was “meant to be a gesture of provocation”; the New York Times reported that “the sculpture really looks its best when in use, sparkling so much it’s almost too bright to look at, especially during the flush”.