Last year, a work of art consisting of a banana taped to a wall, titled 'Comedian', sold for $6.2 million in New York.A golden toilet designed by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan sold for $12.1 million at an auction in New York, according to Sotheby's auction house. The toilet is fully functional and made from about 101 kilograms of 18-karat gold. The starting point for the auction was calculated based on the price of gold on the day of sale, Sotheby's said before the auction. The price of 101 kilograms of 18-karat gold was about $10 million on Tuesday. Cattellan, 65, produced two versions of the toilet in 2016, both titled 'America'. One of the versions was exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York before it was stolen in 2019 from Blenheim Palace in England, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, where it was on loan for display. The second version was sold in 2017 to a private collector and has now been put up for auction. According to US media reports, the buyer is billionaire Steve Cohen, owner of the New York Mets baseball team. The auction for this artwork generated significant buzz before the sale and was widely anticipated. The auction house stated that a famous American brand was the winning bidder. Cattellan is known for his unusual conceptual works.
