Pop a Squat on This Solid Gold Toilet at the Guggenheim, No Seriously

Yes, you can really use this solid 18-karat gold toilet at a new Guggenheim installation.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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For anyone who enjoys art and wants to take a dump in the lap of luxury (literally), there's now a solid gold toilet available for public use at the Guggenheim museum in New York City. That's right: A fully functional toilet made of 18-karat gold is there just waiting for you to sit on it—and probably contemplate how the heck life got you here.

Technically, the toilet is a work of art. It's called America (naturally), and was created by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The metaphor seems a bit on the nose, but there's no doubt 18-karat cold feels great on your butt.

Arts writer Orlando Reade wrote for CNN that attendants tend to the golden bowl with special wipes between usages, and to check to make sure that the golden porcelain throne has not been damaged.

Cattelan's work was inspired by the Fountain, a urinal signed by Marcel Duchamp and put on display in the Armory Show in 1917, according to Reade. Additionally, Reade notes that the golden toilet also harkens back to Lenin, who once said that after communism spread throughout the world, gold would only be used for the creation of public toilets.

America is Cattelan's first public work since he retired after a show at the Guggenheim in 2011. It opened last week, and is an ongoing exhibit, according to the Guggenheim website. 

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