00:00Welcome to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
00:30America is constituted of a fully functional operational toilet fashioned out of solid
00:4018 karat gold.
00:41The work first appeared in 2016 at the Guggenheim Museum where Catalan recreated an exact replica
00:48of the Guggenheim's toilet fashioned out of gold and put it in the bathroom stall available
00:54for visitors.
01:00The work will be offered with a starting bid equivalent to the work's price of its weight
01:27in gold.
01:28So the work is 101.2 kilograms of 18 karat gold.
01:33At today's estimation, that would be worth an estimate of $9.8 million, roughly in the
01:40region of $10 million.
01:42And so with the fluctuating gold market, we will set the starting bid for the work of
01:47art on the night of the sale, Tuesday, November 18th, in accordance with the gold market.
02:32That's an unconventional move. It is directly tied to the work's raw material value in a way that really speaks to Catalan's own interest in the difference between commodity value and artistic value.
02:57And so that very essence, that very debate is really on the table here and something that we will explore in both the sale and the eventual sale price.
03:27I mean, over the course of Catalan's entire career, he's always pushed the boundaries.
03:48This is part of what makes him a great, great artist. He's able to really provoke thought, intellectual debate, and create objects and artworks that transcend the boundaries of the art world and enter the real world.
04:04You know, there is this ability for his works to travel through pop culture and the zeitgeist in a way that so many artworks do not.
04:12And so I think what Catalan is so successful at doing is making artworks that ask difficult questions, that ask uncomfortable questions, and that really hold a mirror to the world in a way that, of course, creates reaction, stirs interest, provokes debate.
04:32And this is one of the greatest examples of that very phenomenon.
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