It was reported today that an artwork by Martin Kippenberger, on
loan to the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund, Germany, was last month damaged beyond
repair by an over-zealous cleaner. The installation, ‘When It Starts Dripping From
The Ceiling’, is described by France24.com as “a tower of wooden slats under which a rubber
trough was placed with a thin beige layer of paint representing dried rain water.” The
cleaner apparently mistook the beige paint as a real stain and conscientiously
scrubbed it “until it gleamed.” She
failed to recognise that what she had wiped clean was an integral part of an
artwork which insurers estimate to be worth over $1 million.
Maybe Kippenberger would be flattered that the unfortunate cleaner
was taken in by the verisimilitude of his work. Maybe the late Kippenberger’s
talent was so great that she, a humble cleaner, believed in the truth of his
stain, and did only what she was paid to do which was to clean it. Maybe the
private collector who loaned the work to the museum will be grateful that
through her innocent actions the cleaner has proved the worth of the piece,
even though by unconsciously causing this damage she has reduced its value
immeasurably. Or maybe the cleaner isn’t so ignorant after all and her actions
were a conscious and piercing critique of the artwork in the vein of the man
who urinated in Duchamp’s urinal.
