America (plastic)

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America (2016)

America is a sculpture by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan . Apart from being made from 18-carat gold , it is a normal, fully functional, American-style washdown toilet and was a long-term performance in a toilet room at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York for almost a year in 2016/2017 City issued. Visitors could not only look at it, but also use it to defecate and thus perceive it practically and haptically .

In the early morning of September 14, 2019, the plastic was stolen from Blenheim Palace in the UK . There it was installed in a historic toilet next to Winston Churchill's birth room and has been presented and used as part of a comprehensive Cattelan exhibition since September 12, 2019.

history

On the occasion of an art exhibition on his complete oeuvre at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2011/2012, the 51-year-old Cattelan announced at the zenith of his career that he would retire early as an artist for the time after this retrospective was over. However, he described his artistic inactivity in the period afterwards, which he finally gave up, with the words “it's even more of a torture not to work than to work.” (It is more agonizing not to work than to work.)

His first work after this "resignation from his resignation" was America , a sculpture made of 18-carat gold (at the time estimated material value : 1.4 to 2.5 million US $), which he made in mid-2015 especially for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum designed as a usable toilet. America was completed in 2016 and installed in September on the 5th floor of the museum building as a faithful replica of a toilet previously installed in an existing toilet room. The artist, who has lived in the United States since 1992, described the object as a reference to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and as “100 percent art for the 99 percent”. He explained the “democratic” appearance of the object with the words “Whatever you eat, a two-hundred-dollar lunch or a two-dollar hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise.” (No matter what you eat, one A two hundred dollar meal or a two dollar sausage, the result is the same from the point of view of the toilet.)

reception

Fountain (1917)

The first user was the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija . Queues soon formed to view and use the property; Visitors could enter the room individually and a security guard at the door made sure that no bags were taken inside.

The museum continued the installation America in a press statement in relation to the career of Donald Trump , which under the slogan Make America Great Again at that time in the election campaign was, and declared: "The aesthetics of this, thrones' recall nothing so much as the gilded excess of Trump's real-estate ventures and private residences. ”(The aesthetics of this“ throne ”are reminiscent of nothing more than the gilded excesses in Trump's real estate projects and private apartments.)

"Golden Toilet" in the White House

In 2018 it became known that a curator on behalf of the Executive Office of the President of the United States had asked the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for a painting by the painter Vincent van Gogh , whereupon she rejected the written offer of the Museum got to install the America object in the White House .

In June 2017, the cabaret artist Trevor Noah made a connection between Trump and a “golden” toilet in a recreated oval office in a three-day exhibition entitled Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library . A “golden” toilet was presented there as the presumed workplace of the “Commander-in-Tweet”.

Exhibition and theft at Blenheim Palace

In September 2019 America was installed at Blenheim Palace , one of the largest and most famous castles in England . The object was exhibited there as part of Cattelan's exhibition of works called Victory Is Not an Option , which ran from September 12 to October 27 . The exhibition also features Cattelan's praying Hitler and Pope John Paul II, hit by a meteorite . The construction Americas took place in a wood-paneled small toilet next to the birth room of Winston Churchill , the founder of the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. The toilet could be used by the visitors for three minutes each time. Early in the morning of September 14th, America was stolen in a burglary by thieves who used multiple vehicles on its mission. There was considerable damage due to the installation breaking out and the resulting water leakage. A 66-year-old suspect has been arrested, the prey has not yet been found. There are fears that America could be melted down. A spokesman for the Blenheim Art Foundation announced that the object was secured according to national standards and insured against theft. The museum director of the Blenheim Palace said that the inclusion of the object in the exhibition justified the associated risk and that it could become "immortal" through the art theft. He also expressed the hope that America could be rediscovered.

Web links

  • Maurizio Cattelan: "America" , website on the guggenheim.org portal
  • Solid gold toilet stolen from Blenheim Palace , TV report on Sky News Australia , September 15, 2019, video (1:59 min) - 0: 27–0: 38, 1: 24–1: 33 and 1: 46– 1:52 you can see (and hear) the shell in a room with a rounded floor plan and gray walls, probably typical of the Guggenheim Museum; Water supply at the top horizontally from the wall. 1: 52–1: 59 the shell can be seen in a room with dark-red-brown, probably wood-paneled walls, looks like the older Blenham Palace; Water supply from below to the high control panel.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Randy Kennedy: Hanging With Cattelan , The New York Times, September 29, 2011; accessed on January 26, 2018.
  2. ↑ Randy Kennedy: Duchamp, Eat Your Heart Out: The Guggenheim Is Installing a Gold Toilet , The New York Times, April 19, 2016; accessed on January 26, 2018.
  3. ↑ Museum's solid-gold toilet now open to the public ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , NBC 12, September 20, 2016; accessed on January 28, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nbc12.com
  4. ^ Carey O'Donnell: The Guggenheim unveils 18-karat gold toilet entitled "America" . Article from September 15, 2016 in the papermag.com portal , accessed on January 27, 2018
  5. ↑ a b Adam Gabbatt: On the throne: what it's like to use the Guggenheim's solid gold toilet . Article from September 16, 2016 on theguardian.com portal , accessed on January 26, 2018
  6. ^ Caitlin Dover: Game of Throne: Maurizio Cattelan's "America" ​​Comes to the Guggenheim . Article from September 15, 2016 in the guggenheim.org portal , accessed on January 26, 2018
  7. ↑ Trump had another need , article from January 26, 2018 in the portal tagesschau.de , accessed on January 26, 2018
  8. ↑ Nancy Spector: Maurizio Cattelan's Golden Toilet in the Time of Trump , article from August 17, 2017 in the portal guggenheim.org , accessed on January 27, 2018
  9. ↑ Trevor Noah's Daily show launches Trump Presidential Twitter Library , TV report by the South African Broadcasting Corporation from June 16, 2017 (YouTube video, 3:19 min)
  10. ^ Praying Hitler on display at Churchill's birthplace . Article from September 13, 2019 in the bbc .com portal , accessed on September 15, 2019
  11. ↑ Mark Brown: Flushed with success: solid-gold toilet to be installed at Blenheim. In: The Guardian. May 3, 2019, accessed September 15, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Damien Gayle: Busted flush: gold toilet reportedly stolen from Blenheim Palace. In: The Guardian. September 14, 2019, accessed September 15, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Stolen toilet made of gold . Article from September 14, 2019 in the portal sueddeutsche.de , accessed on September 14, 2019
  14. ↑ Thieves steal a golden toilet worth 1.1 million euros . Article from September 14, 2019 in the portal stern.de , accessed on September 14, 2019
  15. ↑ Javier Pes: Thieves Steal Maurizio Cattelan's Solid Gold Toilet in an Audacious Heist at Blenheim Palace . Article from September 15, 2019 in the news portal . artnet .com , accessed September 15, 2019
  16. ↑ Nick Craven, Peter Henn: Well, that is £ 5million down the pan! Solid 18-carat gold toilet stolen in daring 'flush and grab' raid on Blenheim Palace art exhibition 'will be melted down by thieves' . Article from September 15, 2019 in the dailymail .co.uk portal , accessed on September 15, 2019
  17. ↑ Castle in England: Golden toilet stolen faz.net, September 15, 2019, accessed September 18, 2019. - Video Golden toilet stolen from Castle in England (0:41), youtube.com, faz, published September 15, 2019.