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The phrase “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is one that can certainly be applied to modern art, and it can also be used literally to describe a situation that recently unfolded at a museum in the Netherlands where an elevator technician assumed some hand-painted beer cans belong in the garbage.
It’s been more than 100 years since Marcel Duchamp caused a hilarious scandal at an exhibition in New York City by submitting a piece dubbed “Fountain,” which was literally a urinal he’d purchased and signed with a fake name in an attempt to challenge the traditional definition of “art.”
That stunt was fairly instrumental in shifting the paradigm concerning the artistic merit of everyday objects that are prominently featured in plenty of pieces that have since earned a spot in some of the most prestigious shows and museums on the planet, and they continue to spark conversations about what “art” truly is.
That brings us to the LAM Museum in Lisse, Netherlands, which boasts a collection of paintings, sculptures, and other artwork “related to food or consumption.”
That includes “All the good times we spent together,” a piece created by Alexandre Lavet in 2016 consisting of two cans of Jupiler beer meant to provoke and honor “cherished memories shared with dear friends” that he painted by hand before they were placed at the top of a clear elevator shaft in the LAM Museum.
According to the institution’s website, curator Elisah van den Bergh recently realized they’d disappeared and subsequently launched a search for the beer cans that were discovered in the trash can where they’d been placed after an elevator technician filling in for the regular employee assumed he’d stumbled across actual garbage as opposed to meticulously-painted artwork.
The cans didn’t sustain any serious damage and were cleaned before being placed on a pedestal in the museum’s lobby as they await a more permanent reinstallation.