Donald Trump reached out to the Guggenheim this week, asking if he could borrow a van Gogh from the museum to display in his residence at The White House. The museum declined, but made another offer instead: a solid gold toilet called “America.”
Trump wanted van Gogh’s “Landscape with Snow,” a 1888 painting depicting a man walking along a path in France with his dog, The Washington Post reports. A museum curator responded to his request saying that particular painting was unavailable, but that he was welcome to borrow the gold toilet, which is actually functional, instead.
The 18-karat solid gold toilet was created by artist Maurizio Cattelan and is meant to represent America’s wealth and excess. It spent a year on the 5th floor of the Guggenheim installed for museum visitors to use. The toilet is estimated to have cost close to $1 million to create.
When asked why he was offering his work to the President, Cattelan responded “What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”
Fair enough.