--- title: Maurizio Cattelan's Golden Toilet Selfies: Guggenheim PHOTOS description: Maurizio Cattelan's solid gold toilet has a residency at New York City's Guggenheim Museum, where it's proved to be Instagram gold. canonical: https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-15T19:35:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:38:41.609Z og:title: This Golden Toilet Is The Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait og:description: Stay gold og:url: https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Golden Toilet Is The Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait twitter:description: Stay gold twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Golden Toilet Is the Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 15, 2016 7:35 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 15, 2016 7:35 PM UTC Those who like their art just as functional as it is beautiful need look no further than [Maurizio Cattelan’s](http://time.com/3807197/maurizio-cattelan-magic-show/) “America,” a fully functioning solid 18k gold toilet that threatens to upstage Duchamp’s infamous urinal as the art world’s most talked about bathroom fixture. The piece, which is on exhibit at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum as part of an ongoing project, is available for use by viewers individually and privately; according to the [_New Yorker_](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/gold-toilet), it is also extremely sanitary, thanks to museum staff cleaning it every 15 minutes. [_Gothamist_](http://gothamist.com/2016/09/15/gold%5Ftoilet%5Fis%5Fserious%5Fart.php) estimates the cost of the appliance to be somewhere between $1,474,592 and $2,527,872, but users have access to it with the relatively low cost of museum admission. Cattelan’s work has long been characterized by the controversial — besides “America,” his pieces include [a sculpture of the pope](https://www.instagram.com/p/BM1hBmPAOcS/?tagged=mauriziocattelan) being crushed by a meteor, a [statue of a giant marble middle finger](https://www.instagram.com/p/BMrMITzApKy/?tagged=mauriziocattelan) flipping off the Milanese stock exchange, and a [bust with the likeness of supermodel Stephanie Seymour nicknamed “Trophy Wife,”](http://observer.com/2010/10/nude-statue-of-peter-brants-wife-stephanie-seymour-graces-cover-of-auction-catalogue/) that was commissioned by her husband, art world maven Peter Brant. The opportunity to use a golden toilet — or perhaps more accurately in this digital age, take a selfie with or on a golden toilet has proved irresistible to many, with [_New York Magazine_](http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/maurizio-cattelan-america.html) reporting that the average wait to experience the exhibit clocking in at about two hours. With that in mind, here are some of the best ‘Grams documenting the experience of seeing Cattelan’s “America.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/"},"headline":"This Golden Toilet Is the Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait","datePublished":"2016-11-15T19:35:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:38:41.609Z","description":"Stay gold","url":"https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","Art","Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4571826/maurizio-cattelan-america-golden-toilet/","name":"This Golden Toilet Is the Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait"}}]}] ```