The Guggenheim Offers the White House a Used Gold Toilet

Photo credit: Paul Arps, CC BY 2.0.

Today in “I will always share stories about solid gold toilets,” we go to the Washington Post:

The emailed response from the Guggenheim’s chief curator to the White House was polite but firm: The museum could not accommodate a request to borrow a painting by Vincent van Gogh for President and Melania Trump’s private living quarters.

[…]

The curator’s alternative: an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet — an interactive work titled “America” that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.

YES, YOU CAN READ THE LETTER

YES, THE SOLID GOLD TOILET WAS ORIGINALLY INSTALLED IN ONE OF THE GUGGENHEIM PUBLIC RESTROOMS

YES, THE GUGGENHEIM WANTS YOU TO USE THE TOILET:

Its participatory nature, in which viewers are invited to make use of the fixture individually and privately, allows for an experience of unprecedented intimacy with a work of art.

YES, ARTIST MAURIZIO CATTELAN GAVE A QUOTE TO THE WASHINGTON POST:

“What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”

I love this story so much.

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