Donald and Melania Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum to lend them a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. Time
The White House wanted a van Gogh.
Instead, the Guggenheim offered a gold toilet called "America."
According to the Washington Post, the White House had asked the museum if it woud loan "Landscape With Snow," an 1888 work by the famous artist, for the private living quarters of President Trump and first lady Melania Trump.
That wasn't meant to be.
But if the White House was interested, the museum noted, contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan was willing to offer his own piece for "a long-term loan": a functioning, solid gold toilet that had been on display in the museum's public restroom for use.
"It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care," museum curator Nancy Spector wrote to the White House in September.
The White House didn't take them up on their offer.
According to a blog post written by Spector, the concept for the golden toilet was proposed around the time that Trump announced his candidacy in 2015.
"It was inconceivable at the time that this business mogul, he of the eponymous gilded tower, could actually win the White House," Spector wrote. "When the sculpture came off view on September 15 [2017], Trump had been in office for 238 days, a term marked by scandal and defined by the deliberate rollback of countless civil liberties, in addition to climate-change denial that puts our planet in peril."
Have you ever dreamed of using a toilet made out of gold? Neither have we BUT now you can thanks to the Guggenheim's latest exhibition. Maria Mercedes Galuppo (@mariamgaluppo) has more. Buzz60
Join the Nation's Conversation
To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs