Museum offers used, 18-karat toilet to Trump
New York’s Guggenheim Museum offered to lend an 18-karat gold toilet to President Donald Trump after the White House asked to borrow a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The museum’s chief curator offered to loan the toilet, which had been used by tens of thousands of visitors, in a Sept. 15 email to a Trump administration official, the newspaper reported.
A Guggenheim spokeswoman declined immediate comment on the Washington Post report and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The piece, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s, is an 18-karat gold, fully functioning toilet. It is called “America.”
It was put on display in 2016 in a single-stall bathroom at the Guggenheim, where it was used in private luxury by more than 100,000 people, according to a Guggenheim blog post. The museum said the object, which was on display for a year, “skewers social complacencies” and the extravagances of the wealthy.
The offer came in response to a White House request to borrow the painting “Landscape with Snow” by 19th century Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, for installation at the president and first lady’s private living quarters, the Washington Post reported. The request for the painting was declined.