Pants on Fire

American Standard

American Standard

For the White House, I asked for Van Gogh
but the Guggenheim said, flat out, "No!"
They offered instead
an 18K head
with a warning: "It's not just for show."

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