Trump Wanted to Borrow a Van Gogh; He Was Offered a Gold Toilet

It's not unusual for The White House to borrow iconic works of art to decorate 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. When Barack Obama took office he borrowed "Black Like Me #2," by the queer black artist Glenn Ligon, among many other works. For President Trump's White House, a request to New York's Gugenheim Museum for Vincent Van Gogh's "Landscape with Snow," was rejected. Instead, curator Nancy Spector suggested the President might like another piece--an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet titled "America" by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

It's not clear whether Trump, who has a well-documented penchant for bling, will host the toilet in the White House. Explaining the museum's decision not to lend the valuable Van Gogh work, curator Nancy Spector explained that the painting was heading to the Guggenheim's museum in Bilbao, Spain, and then would return to New York "for the foreseeable future."

For his part, according to the New York Post, Cattelan said the matter was "very delicate," before adding, "What's the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense."