… plus a host of accidents, errors and blunders that resulted in the destruction of works by some of the world’s most revered artists
An artwork presented during this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong hit headlines when it was thrown away by over-zealous cleaners, who mistook the piece for a discarded McDonald’s Happy Meal. While unfortunate, the error was understandable: the piece in question — a paper sculpture entitled Unhappy Meal by Swiss artist Carol May, resembled McDonald’s packaging almost exactly, save for its downturned yellow mouth. Though worked retrieved the piece from a waste disposal unit, it was deemed to be damaged beyond repair, having initially been valued at around CHF 350.
Carol May’s Unhappy Meal, which was destroyed when it was thrown away by diligent cleaners.
The incident was not the first time an artwork had been mistaken for litter: in 2004, a worker at Tate Britain threw away an integral component of an installation by German contemporary artist Gustav Metzger. Again, the piece bore a striking resemblance to actual trash: in this case, the artwork thrown away was an actual bin bag containing litter. More ironic still was the theme of the work in which bin bag had featured: entitled Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art, the display was intended as a serious meditation on the lack of control humans have over degradable objects.
Yet, while some artworks have suffered due to the innocent mistakes of gallery staff, others have been intercepted by members of the public who think that rubbish art is, well, rubbish. In 1999, a housewife from Wales drove 200 miles to London to clean up Tracey Emin’s notoriously messy installation My Bed, then on display at Tate, having been nominated for the Turner Prize. Quickly intercepted by security guards, the zealous cleaner stood by her actions, claiming Emin would never find love with dirty sheets.
Smashed and Torn
April proved to be a month of disastrous art encounters, with the blunder of cleaners in Hong Kong quickly followed by news that a Jeff Koons had been smashed to pieces. Taken from the artist’s series of ‘Gazing Ball Paintings’, the work, entitled Gazing Ball (Perugino Madonna and Child with Four Saints, was on display as part of Koons’s exhibition at Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk. All had run smoothly until the show’s final day, when one curious visitor decided to touch the delicate glass ball at the work’s center, smashing it to pieces.
Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball (Perugino Madonna and Child with Four Saint, which was destroyed when a curious visitor decided to touch it.
The incident was not the first time a museum visitor had destroyed a work on display: in 2010, a woman visiting New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art fell disastrously into L’acteur, a 1904 painting by Pablo Picasso, creating a 15 cm tear that extended across the painting’s lower right corner. The work — which is considered to be one of the artist’s most important, with an estimated value of $130 million — took three months to restore. Visitors to the Met will note the painting today hangs behind a strategically placed sheet of strong Plexiglas.
Disastrous Selfies
The modern era’s obsession with art gallery selfies has proved to be a considerable risk to fragile installations. When it opened at the Hirshhorn in 2017, Yayoi Kusama’s glowing Infinity Mirrors installation attracted hordes of visitors, all eager to get a Instagram-worthy shot of themselves stood among the artist’s trademark pumpkins. One visitor’s attempt to achieve the perfect angle, however, resulted in disaster, when a fatal misstep crushed one of the pumpkins on display, temporarily causing the installation’s closure as a replacement gourd was sought.
Fancy taking a selfie among Kusama’s glowing pumpkins? One false move could prove disastrous.
Soon after, video footage of a second selfie incident went viral, after a visitor to the 14th Factory Exhibition in LA caused an estimated $200,000 in damage when she toppled into a display — causing a domino-like effect that sent a series of plinths crashing to the ground. Three of the sculptures were permanently destroyed, though early reviewers of the show had possibly pre-empted the risk, noting the exhibition’s social media-friendly format. The latter should be a concern for institution curators, who increasingly host immersive installations designed to appeal to the Instagram generation.
