When the White House’s Office of the Curator emailed the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to request that President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump borrow Van Gogh’s “Landscape in Snow” for their private residence at the White House, the Guggenheim’s curator denied the request, CNN reports.
Instead, the curator offered another piece in “loo” of the famous Van Gogh painting: an 18-karat gold toilet.
According to The Washington Post, the Guggenheim curator said that “Landscape in Snow” was on its way to be showcased at the Guggenheim’s museum in Bilbao, Spain, and would return and stay at the museum in New York.
The fully functioning,18-karat gold toilet, titled “America,” was an interactive work featured at the museum, where it was installed in a fifth floor public bathroom for all visitors of the museum to use, CNN reports.
The artwork, created by contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan, drew headlines when it was first showcased, and Cattelan described his work “as 1 percent art for the 99 percent,” The Post reports. Cattelan said that the idea of how wealth permeates aspects of society was an influence for his piece.
“Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” Cattelan said.
In her email to the White House, Guggenheim curator, Nancy Spector, wrote that the exhibit for “America” was over and that the gold toilet was available “should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,” CNN reports.
Spector wrote that the artist “would like to offer it to the White House for a long-term loan.”
“It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care,” Spector added.
According to The Post, Spector has made her political beliefs very clear in her blog posts and on social media. “This must be the first day of our revolution to take back our beloved country from hatred, racism, and intolerance. Don’t mourn. Organize,” Spector wrote on Instagram the day after Trump was elected president.
In the email to the White House, Spector included a photograph of the gold toilet for the White House’s “reference.”
“We are sorry not to be able to accommodate your original request, but remain hopeful that this special offer may be of interest,” Spector concluded, according to The Post.