Art World
Artist Andres Serrano Bought a Cake Auctioned Off From Donald and Melania Trump’s Wedding
Why did the artist buy the miniature chocolate truffle cake for $1,880?
Why did the artist buy the miniature chocolate truffle cake for $1,880?
Henri Neuendorf ShareShare This Article
The artist Andres Serrano has been revealed as the buyer of a miniature wedding cake served at Donald and Melania Trump’s wedding in 2005. The artist bought the cake at Boston-based RR Auctions for $1,880 (against a high estimate of $1,500) on February 7, according to the Art Newspaper.
The fully intact, three-inch-tall “chocolate truffle cake with single sugar-spun buttercream rose and gold flakes” was sold in its original (albeit stained) packaging, which bears the monogram MDT. It was given to one of the 350 guests invited to the Trumps’ wedding in lieu of a slice from the much larger, seven-tiered “centerpiece cake,” which cost $50,000 but was not served to guests because its wire infrastructure made it unfit for consumption.
It’s unclear what Serrano—who is known for using unorthodox materials in his work, such as the notorious 1987 photograph Piss Christ, for which he submerged a crucifix in a vat of his own urine—plans to do with the cake. “Artists work in mysterious ways,” he told TAN. “You never know what they’re up to! I don’t like to talk about things until I’m ready to talk.”
The President has appeared as a subject in Serrano’s work before. In 2003, Trump posed for the artist as part of his photo series titled “America,” which he began shortly after September 11. “I felt we had been attacked as the ‘enemy’ and I wanted to show who America is,” Serrano told Vice.
Whatever he does with the cake, Serrano seems to have gotten a good deal. Bustle reported that another miniature cake from the President’s third wedding sold for $2,240 as a piece of collectible Presidential memorabilia at Julien’s Auctions in 2017.