Art for Art’s Sake, Money for God’s Sake

That refrain from an old 10cc song leapt to mind when I saw this story about the White House asking the Guggenheim Museum to loan it a Van Gogh, “Landscape With Snow.” No dice, the Guggenheim responded, but we do have a lovely interactive sculpture titled “America,” no longer on display, that artist Maurizio Cattelan will let you have on long-term loan.

“America” is a solid-gold toilet. From the WaPo, which broke the story:

Cattelan, reached by phone in New York, referred questions about the toilet to the Guggenheim, saying with a chuckle, “It’s a very delicate subject.” Asked to explain the meaning of his creation and why he offered it to the Trumps, he said, “What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”

My favorite part of the WaPo story is that this marvelous quote is followed by the sentence, “He declined to reveal the cost of the gold it took to create ‘America,’ though it has been estimated to have been more than $1 million,” demonstrating, apparently without irony, precisely what the artist was satirizing.