Everyday objects can be a work of art. Even crushed beer cans. Two such cans were in the news recently when an artwork titled ‘All the Good Times We Spent Together’ by artist Alexandre Lavet looked like two crushed beer cans were thrown away by a mechanic at a Dutch museum. At first, the cans looked dented and meant to be discarded but when observed closely, the cans were hand-painted with acrylic. The incident was highlighted when a mechanic, who saw them displayed in a lift, chucked them in the bin.
Curator Elisah van den Bergh at the LAM museum in Lisse, western Netherlands, was quick to recover the art pieces from a bin bag in the nick of time. “We have now put the work in a more traditional place on a plinth so it can rest after its adventure,” informed the museum in a media statement, adding “There were ‘no hard feelings’ towards the mechanic, who had just started at the museum.”
Froukje Budding, a spokeswoman for the LAM museum, also informed the media that artworks are often left in unusual places — hence the display in a lift. “We try to surprise the visitor all the time,” she said.
Does this mean the artistic value of a work of art is lost when surprises like these are left to interpretation? It also means when art enters every aspect of our lives it is no longer separate, or an effort. Turning everyday objects into creative expression in the art world is the new normal. Artists in the past have included objects such as tableware, trinkets, and household goods in their work to represent aesthetics, or bring value to mundane objects. One of the most iconic examples of everyday objects is pop artist Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans, from which the artist claimed he ate soup for lunch everyday for 20 years.
However, artists like Gustav Metzger and Damien Hirst have witnessed similar situations when their artworks were discarded or damaged on display. In 2001, Hirst had lost a pile of beer bottles, ashtrays and coffee cups, meant to represent the life of an artist, when a caretaker at the Eyestorm Gallery in London cleared it away. In 2004, German artist Gustav Metzger’s installation called ‘Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art’ was on display at the Tate Britain when a museum employee accidentally threw part of it away. One unfortunate art incident that happened in the recent past was of a man who ate the banana, saying he was hungry. The banana was taped to a wall as part of an installation by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan at a gallery in Seoul. The work titled ‘Comedian’ went viral on social media as most people failed to understand how a decaying fruit could earn the buck or if it is a ‘priceless’ art form meant for the elite who don’t know the price of a banana.
Globally, this incident is the most talked about, for it was sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida, in 2019. Another incident that happened in 2011, was when a passionate cleaner in Germany ruined a piece of modern art worth £690,000 after mistaking it for an eyesore that needed a good scrub. The sculpture titled, ‘When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling’, comprised a rubber trough placed underneath a rickety wooden tower made from slats. Inside the trough, German artist Martin Kippenberger had spread a layer of paint representing dried rainwater. However, art is open to interpretation, and will affect every individual differently. It can be well understood by the masses, just perhaps not the way in which it is consumed in gallery spaces or not in specific times allocated to appreciate it.
Everyday objects can be a work of art. Even crushed beer cans. Two such cans were in the news recently when an artwork titled ‘All the Good Times We Spent Together’ by artist Alexandre Lavet looked like two crushed beer cans (pic above) were thrown away by a mechanic at a Dutch museum. At first, the cans looked dented and meant to be discarded but when observed closely, the cans were hand-painted with acrylic. The incident was highlighted when a mechanic, who saw them displayed in a lift, chucked them in the bin.
Curator Elisah van den Bergh at the LAM museum in Lisse, western Netherlands, was quick to recover the art pieces from a bin bag in the nick of time. “We have now put the work in a more traditional place on a plinth so it can rest after its adventure,” informed the museum in a media statement, adding “There were ‘no hard feelings’ towards the mechanic, who had just started at the museum.”
Froukje Budding, a spokeswoman for the LAM museum, also informed the media that artworks are often left in unusual places — hence the display in a lift. “We try to surprise the visitor all the time,” she said.
Does this mean the artistic value of a work of art is lost when surprises like these are left to interpretation? It also means when art enters every aspect of our lives it is no longer separate, or an effort. Turning everyday objects into creative expression in the art world is the new normal. Artists in the past have included objects such as tableware, trinkets, and household goods in their work to represent aesthetics, or bring value to mundane objects. One of the most iconic examples of everyday objects is pop artist Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans, from which the artist claimed he ate soup for lunch everyday for 20 years.
However, artists like Gustav Metzger and Damien Hirst have witnessed similar situations when their artworks were discarded or damaged on display. In 2001, Hirst had lost a pile of beer bottles, ashtrays and coffee cups, meant to represent the life of an artist, when a caretaker at the Eyestorm Gallery in London cleared it away. In 2004, German artist Gustav Metzger’s installation called ‘Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art’ was on display at the Tate Britain when a museum employee accidentally threw part of it away. One unfortunate art incident that happened in the recent past was of a man who ate the banana, saying he was hungry. The banana was taped to a wall as part of an installation by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan at a gallery in Seoul. The work titled ‘Comedian’ went viral on social media as most people failed to understand how a decaying fruit could earn the buck or if it is a ‘priceless’ art form meant for the elite who don’t know the price of a banana.
Globally, this incident is the most talked about, for it was sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida, in 2019. Another incident that happened in 2011, was when a passionate cleaner in Germany ruined a piece of modern art worth £690,000 after mistaking it for an eyesore that needed a good scrub. The sculpture titled, ‘When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling’, comprised a rubber trough placed underneath a rickety wooden tower made from slats. Inside the trough, German artist Martin Kippenberger had spread a layer of paint representing dried rainwater. However, art is open to interpretation, and will affect every individual differently. It can be well understood by the masses, just perhaps not the way in which it is consumed in gallery spaces or not in specific times allocated to appreciate it.
