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One Hard Worker: From the moment he arrived at work on October 17, 2001, Emmanuel Asare knew it was going to be a bad day. A janitor for the tony London art gallery Eyestorm, Asare reported for duty that morning only to find that his employers had trashed the place at the previous night’s party. Surely his heart broke at the sight of half-empty coffee cups, cigarette butts, beer bottles, candy wrappers, and newspapers strewn from one end of the gallery to the other. But rather than turning in a letter of resignation, Asare bucked up and dutifully cleaned up the mess, chucking all the junk into the dumpster out back.
One Harder Truth: Unfortunately, that “trash” turned out to be an impromptu installation by artist Damien Hirst, who’d assembled his masterpiece out of the party refuse. Worse, because of its fleeting and irreplaceable nature, the artwork was valued at more than $9,000. Fortunately for Asare, though, the guy who found deep, symbolic meaning in kegger leftovers also found meaning in those leftovers being thrown away. When told about the janitor’s mistake (or negative review, if you will) Hirst was thrilled, claiming it said something “very key” about his work.
This summer, we’ll be re-running parts of “The 20 Greatest Mistaikes in History,” Maggie Koerth-Baker’s cover story from March-April 2007. For other installments, click here.
Shhh…super secret special for blog readers.
Oy. I truly dislike much of modern “art” and the windbags who “create” it.
Yay for the janitor!
posted by Dawn on 7-28-2008 at 5:40 am
@Dawn I am the same way. Flame me if you will, but I despise Jackson Pollack.
“Look at me, I can drizzle paint, and drop my cigarette butts when I’m done.”
posted by Benjamin M. Strozykowski on 7-28-2008 at 6:12 am
With you guys all the way.
Sometimes I think modern art is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect.
No one wants to say it’s crap, in case they are seen as being uncultured or lacking finesse. It takes a hard working janitor to see what is. A room full of trash is just that, trash.
Go ahead and flame away. I rarely come back to see if I get responses.
posted by Patrick B on 7-28-2008 at 8:10 am
thank god the artist didn’t freak out that some poor janitor came in and essentially did his job…at least he wasn’t fired or told to pay for the ‘art’…
I still like the artist who I saw on 60 Minutes who put a sheet of plywood under glass, hung it on the wall, and asked thousands of dollars for it…the stupid people who BUY crap like that are the real fools…ha…
posted by donner on 7-28-2008 at 9:17 am
Go Janitor! I’d say the biggest mistake would be if that gallery paid for the “artist” to trash it.
I’ve also thought that modern art would be the way to make a few bucks if things ever get rough. Draw a blue line or something on a canvas and then give it some pretentious/obscure name (”Isolation”, “Enigma of the Xanadu Termite”). Gold!
posted by kate on 7-28-2008 at 9:54 am