The Golden Toilet

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. 14 September 2019. Five hours after Maurizio Cattelan's solid-gold artwork "America" — a fully functional eighteen-carat gold toilet, valued at £4.8 million — has opened to the public, a small team breaks in, rips the piece from the wall with the water still running, and disappears into the dark. The artwork was Cattelan's satire on excess: a working luxury toilet that any visitor could use. It had been plumbed into Blenheim's water supply two days earlier as part of a curated exhibition. The thieves spent under five minutes inside the building. The piece weighed over a hundred kilograms. They got it into a vehicle and drove off the grounds. They flooded a UNESCO world heritage site to do it. Thames Valley Police's investigation lasted nearly five years. The trial concluded at Oxford Crown Court in March 2024: James Sheen pleaded guilty to burglary and conspiracy; Michael Jones convicted of burglary; Fred Doe convicted of conspiracy; Bora Guccuk acquitted. The court accepted that the toilet had been melted down within days of the theft and the gold sold across multiple transactions. None of it has been traced. Maren and Ellis on a piece of conceptual art whose thieves, by destroying it, performed exactly what the artwork was about.