Jewish Garbage Art Mistaken for Garbage by Janitor

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Jim Pennington

Jewish Garbage Art Mistaken for Garbage by Janitor

Post by Jim Pennington » Mon May 12, 2014 6:24 am

Image
Jewish Artist Martin Kippenberger's
“When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling”


BERLIN (AFP) - A cleaning woman at a German museum who mistook a sculpture for an unsightly mess has destroyed the valuable artwork beyond recognition, a spokeswoman for the western city of Dortmund said Thursday.

The cleaner at the city's Ostwall Museum went to work on the Martin Kippenberger installation titled When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling, which was valued by insurers at 800,000 euros ($1.1 million), she said.

The late contemporary master had created a tower of wooden slats under which a rubber trough was placed with a thin beige layer of paint representing dried rain water.

Taking it for an actual stain, the cleaner scrubbed the surface until it gleamed.
"It is now impossible to return it to its original state," the spokeswoman said, adding that the damage had been discovered late last month and that the work had been on loan to the museum from a private collector.

She said that cleaning crews had orders to remain 20 centimetres (eight inches) away from artworks but it was unclear if the woman had received the directive from the external company that employed her.

Works of art not infrequently fall victim to zealous cleaners. In 1986, a "grease stain" by Joseph Beuys valued at around 400,000 euros was mopped away at the Academy of Fine Arts in Duesseldorf, western Germany.


$1.1M German museum piece falls victim to cleaning lady

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C.E. Whiteoak
Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 7:45 pm

Re: Jewish Garbage Art Mistaken for Garbage by Janitor

Post by C.E. Whiteoak » Mon May 12, 2014 8:51 am

1.1 million bucks?? :o Looks like fifty cents worth of kindling wood plus a two-dollar pan to change your oil in. :lol: :lol:

David York

Re: Jewish Garbage Art Mistaken for Garbage by Janitor

Post by David York » Mon May 12, 2014 9:02 am

That is the ugliest piece of shit I have ever seen. I can't blame the woman for mistaking it for garbage. She was just doing her job lol. :lol: It would of been funnier if she broke it into a million pieces and threw it in the trash. :lol:

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