"When Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, known for his quirky sense of humor, his bad taste and his sculpture of Pope John Paul II crushed by a meteor, conceived the idea of creating a fully functioning solid gold toilet and installing it in a public restroom, he called Nancy Spector, the curator at the Guggenheim Museum.
Might she be interested in it?
A woman of exquisite artistic sensibility—she’d been with the Guggenheim for almost 30 years—Spector undoubtedly got the joke straight away.
It would be an “interactive exhibit” deriving its meaning from having the Museum’s patrons do their business in it.
The idea of shitting on America would surely cause shivers to run down the legs of New York’s intellectuals.
To ensure that everybody “got it,” there’d be a large sign above the commode saying “America.”
Spector thought that would be a splendid idea, and her boss agreed.
I don’t know how much the Guggenheim paid for it, but the cost of the gold alone is estimated to have been in excess of $1 million.
...And so it happened that when President and Mrs. Trump, in accordance with tradition, requested the loan of a painting for the White House—a Van Gogh landscape—Spector thought she’d have a little joke of her own.
We’re lending the Van Gogh to Spain, she replied.
Then, having first run the idea by the artist, she offered to lend them the toilet instead.
Get the joke?
No?
Neither do I.
And neither did the Washington Post, who asked Mr. Cattelan what was meant by the offer..."
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