The Headlines
ROYAL FLUSH. During the marquee New York sales next month, Maurizio Cattelan, whose duct-taped banana sold for $6.2 million last year, might just steal the show one more time. That at least seems to be what Sotheby’s is betting on when it offers the Italian conceptual prankster infamous 18-karat, solid gold toilet. Titled America (2016), it will be plumbed into a bathroom in the Breuer Building , Sotheby’s new HQ, and visitors will be invited to view it one-by-one beginning November 8. In an auction first, when the 100-kilogram toilet hits the block on November 18, the starting bid will be determined by the price of the work’s weight in gold—or around $10 million. “Cattelan’s incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value has never felt more timely,” Sotheby’s said in a statement. Sotheby’s confirmed to ARTnews that no bidders have dropped a big deposit to secure the work with an irrevocable bid ahead of the sale.
BLURRED LINES. The boundaries of artist representation are shifting in today’s art market, the Art Newspaper writes. New York–based artist Tom Sachs is now represented by The Lede Company, a PR agency rather than a gallery. The announcement clarified that Thaddaeus Ropac , Sachs’s long-time dealer, remains responsible for his fine art, while The Lede will handle brand and media collaborations. This division raises questions about where a gallery’s remit ends and an agency’s begins. Sachs’s practice, rooted in critiques of consumer culture, has evolved to embrace high-profile partnerships, including with Levi’s and Nike, for whom he designed the Mars Yard 3.0 sneakers and a related app. He describes Nike as a “megaphone” for his ideas, giving him reach far beyond the art market.
The Digest
Scientific art analysis firm ArtDiscovery has unveiled what it called the “world’s first insured authenticity guarantee for artworks.” The new product pairs connoisseurship and provenance research with laboratory science and proprietary AI, and then backs the conclusion with an insurance policy from an A+ rated insurer. [ArtDiscovery]
Architecture critic Michael Kimmelman previews the Studio Museum in Harlem’s new building, opening next month. [The New York Times]
It’s Halloween, so the Irish Times toured Ireland’s only death museum and found death masks, mourning jewelry, and real human teeth used for dentures. [Irish Times]
From spirit photography to spectral sculptures, an exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel explores 250 years of spooky imagery in art. [Artnet News]
The Kicker
BOO! Zachary Small, the New York Times’s culture reporter, has taken readers on a haunted tour of the the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “You’re in for a scare: they include a decapitation platter and a sculpture of a rumored cannibal,” the paper writes. Watch the video here.
