A 51-year-old technical employee has been fired by the Pinakothek der Moderne, a museum in Munich. “Hoping for an artistic breakthrough,” he hung his own painting on a wall of the department of modern and contemporary art on February 23, the German newspaper reports Southgerman newspaper. For a day, his work shared space with pop art pioneer Andy Warhol.
“The employee considers himself an artist,” a spokesperson told The Guardian. “His job at the museum is a side hustle for him to finance his true calling.” As a member of the technical staff, the man had access to the museum outside opening hours. This allowed him to attach his painting of 60 by 120 cm to an empty, white wall in the east wing on the first floor. He did so before dawn on February 23.
Smuggling art
Museum staff noticed the new artwork “immediately,” and after closing it was removed from the wall and returned to its creator, the spokesperson told The Guardian. But according to German media, the museum does not actually know how long the painting was there for exactly, and whether they noticed it the day it was hung there, or roughly a week later.
A few weeks ago a similar incident took place in Bonn: a student smuggled one of her own paintings into the Bundeskunsthalle and attached it to the wall with double-sided tape. Unlike in Munich, the addition was not noticed at first – it was only when the exhibition was dismantled that the staff realized that a painting was left behind. The Kunsthalle responded with humor: “We find it funny and would like to get to know the artist. So get in touch! There will be no problems. Word of honour,” said X.
Copycats and pranksters
“Exposure and attention make a work famous,” Andy Warhol once said, but exposure was limited in the case of the handyman artist. Unfortunately, the museum did not want to provide details about his painting, neither about the subject nor about the style. If the museum went into detail about this, they reason, they would further encourage “copycats or pranksters.” What they did want to say was that they had received “no positive feedback” from visitors about the artwork.
The gallery fired the mechanic and banned him from the museum. Police are now investigating a charge of malicious damage to property after the man drilled two holes in the wall to secure his artwork.
The Pinakothek der Moderne is located in Munich’s Kunstareal museum district and is divided into art, architecture, design and works on paper from the 20th and 21st centuries. The permanent collection contains more than 20,000 works, including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann and Paul Klee.
2024-04-10 09:02:54
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