Comedian John Oliver Went on an Epic Search to Find a 28-Year-Old Painting of Rat Erotica. Last Night, He Successfully Bought It for $1,000

There’s the search for the holy
grail, the fountain of youth, and now, a 1992 painting of two rats
doing it.  

These objects have led to some
of the greatest quests in history. And Sunday, comedian John
Oliver, the host of the weekly HBO show Last Week Tonight, ended one of them in epic
fashion. 

Two weeks ago, the comedian
discovered a painting of two anthropomorphized rats while watching
a recording of a
televised art auction for a local PBS media partner in York,
Pennsylvania, WITF. Oliver vowed to find the painting, which
depicts the vermin holding each other in a tender, late-night
embrace, and offered to pay $1,000 for it, plus a $20,000 donation
to charity as a finders fee. 

This weekend, the host delivered
on his promise. 

“I believe I have something
you’re looking for, world. I believe I have something we’ve all
been looking for,” Oliver said while pulling the 28-year-old erotic
work out from under his desk. Stirring music swelled in the
background as he hoisted the piece above his head: “And it’s called
hope!”

The painting, it turns out, was
done by a man named Brian Swords, an artist known within the furry
community (and who—as if his real name wasn’t badass
enough—operates under the pseudonym Biohazard). The work inspired a
kind of cultish interest among house-bound internetters in the last
few weeks. Newsweek even tracked down the artist and the producers
of the WITF auction, but the location of the painting—and the
person who purchased it for a cool $80—remained a
mystery.  

Oliver set up a devoted email
account for information about the artwork, to which he received
numerous fan-made examples of furry art, including several rat sex
scenes, a portrayal of the host himself as a sexy vermin, and one,
inexplicably, of two seaside koalas giving each other
chlamydia.

Then he received a particularly
intriguing email, the body of which simply read, “I believe I have
something you’re looking for.” Attached was a picture of the
painting next to that day’s newspaper.  

“Is this what America needs most
right now? No, of course it isn’t. America needs a vaccine, more
ventilators, a different president and also just a quick break,”
Oliver said on the segment. “But you know what would be nice in the
meantime? A victory. And managing to track down that painting would
definitely be a win because what are the chances that, in 1992, in
south-central Pennsylvania, a man would have made an impulse
purchase of high-quality rat erotica and then, instead of throwing
it away at literally any point in the past 28 years, kept it,
cherished it, framed it, not knowing that one day, far in the
future, it might force HBO to donate $20,000 Pennsylvania food
banks in the middle of a pandemic.” 

“It sounds impossible,” he
continued. “There’s no chance, right? But if that person could do
all that, so that painting could find its way to me, then there’s
no limit to what we can do, my friends. To what we have already
done.” 

Incidentally, the animal erotica
wasn’t the only artwork to make an appearance during Oliver’s last
show. The host also featured the still life paintings of Judy
Kudlow, the wife of national economic council director Larry
Kudlow, which bizarrely depict her husband’s ties. Despite being
married to a high-ranking White House official reportedly worth
over $2 million, Judy Kudlow applied for a small business
bailout.

Oliver also put out a call to
his audience for one of Kudlow’s works of art, offering to pay $10
(the price of which was determined by its quality in comparison to
that of Swords’s painting) and another $20,000 donation to a local
food bank.

The post Comedian John Oliver Went on an Epic Search to Find
a 28-Year-Old Painting of Rat Erotica. Last Night, He Successfully
Bought It for $1,000 appeared first on artnet News.