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The White House asked to borrow a van Gogh. The Guggenheim offered a gold toilet instead.

wandering

wandering

flâneur
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
2,136
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html

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.

Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy Spector, another piece was available, one that was nothing like "Landscape With Snow," the 1888 Van Gogh rendering of a man in a black hat walking along a path in Arles, France, with his dog.

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.

For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited "America" — the creation of contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan — in a public restroom on the museum's fifth floor for visitors to use.
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"Fortuitously," Spector wrote, Cattelan's "America" was available after having been "installed in one of our public restrooms for all to use in a wonderful act of generosity."

She included with the email a photograph of the toilet "for your reference."

"We are sorry not to be able to accommodate your original request," the curator concluded, "but remain hopeful that this special offer may be of interest."
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Salmonax

Salmonax

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,088
Brutal. The piece itself looks like it's programmed for etiquette and protocol.

gold%2Btoilet.gif
 
Kaako

Kaako

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,736
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.
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Perfection.
 
Pirate Bae

Pirate Bae

Edelgard Feet Appreciator
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
6,792
??
He actually asked to have a Van Gogh painting just because he's president?

What an entitled cocksucker.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Who was it who had to tell him not to accept the obviously disingenuous offer after he inevitably got super excited about the gold toilet?
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,889
Greg NYC3 said:
Wait, is this normal? Presidents can just ask to have valuable works of art "loaned" to them?



LOL, OK which one of you guys did this?
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Yes, at least with works that are owned by the Smithsonian. They have a full collections staff just for the White House. Asking for a loan from a private institution, and for a piece to be hung in a private residential area is unusual.

Here's what Obama picked out,
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1929522_1965673,00.html
 
Kasai

Kasai

Member
Jan 24, 2018
4,280
I came so close to seeing this when I was in NYC in October of 2016. We had the time, but we didn't really know it.

Plus, the Rotunda was closed and it was brutal for us. I
 
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