Cleaner Scrubs Away Part of Art Instillation

Sometimes art can be just a little too real. For a cleaning woman who sees a dried puddle on the floor, her first reaction is to scrub it away. When it’s part of the art instillation, that may not be the best idea.

It happened in Germany last month when Martin Kippenberger’s piece, “When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling” was put on display. A bowl sits at the base of the piece, and a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle was in the bowl. When the cleaning woman found the “puddle,” I suppose she felt it didn’t look right.

So she scrubbed the heck out of it.

The resulting damage is over $1 million, and it gets worse. Martin Kippenberger isn’t alive to fix the piece. Oh, but it gets even worse still. The piece was on loan from a personal collection.

I’m betting the owners aren’t going to be happy about it, but I’m betting they’ll be compensated for it. The big question is, did the cleaning woman keep her job? Cuz $1 million is a whole lotta clams.

Read more about the drippy situation here.