Cleaner ruins valuable 'dirty' artwork NEWS
An overzealous German cleaner scoured off a layer of paint on a sculpture by the late Martin Kippenberger, valued at £690,000.
A piece by German artist Martin Kippenberger on loan from a private collector to a museum in Dortmund has been ruined by a cleaner who mistook the piece for an eyesore that needed a thorough clean.
Kippenberger was widely regarded as one of the most talented modern artists of his time until his death in 1997. The work 'When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling' consists of a rubber trough placed underneath a tower of intricate wooden slats. Inside the trough, the artist had painted it in such a way to represent dried rain drops.
A spokeswoman for the Ostwall Museum told the media that the cleaner 'removed the patina from the four walls of the trough' and is 'now impossible to return it to its original state'.
Cleaners had been instructed to keep 20cm away from artworks at all times, however it is unclear whether the woman in question had received the warning.
The piece was insured by the private collector, valued at 800,000 (£690,000).
Unfortunately, Kippenberger is not the only artist to have had his work destroyed by enthusiastic cleaners. In 2004, a cleaner at Tate Britain threw away a piece of Gustav Metzger's instalment, after confusing it with rubbish. In her defence, it was a plastic bag containing discarded paper and cardboard, which could have easily been left by visitors. However, instead of checking, she removed the integral part of Recreation of first Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art and binned it. Though later recovered, the bag was too damaged to display, so the artist replaced it.
In 2001, Damien Hirst had a pile of beer bottles, ashtrays and coffee cups removed from the Eyestorm Gallery in London after being mistaken for garbage. In reality, it was the artist's representation of the life that comes with the creative occupation.
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