Oops! Cleaner Scrubs Away $1.1M Artwork
A cleaning woman at a German art museum mistook a $1.1 million sculpture for a mess, and made a bigger mess of things when she scrubbed most of it away.The cleaner went to work on the Martin Kippenberger installation titled “When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling," a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle, The Associated Press reported.The overzealous cleaning woman mistook it for a stain, and scrubbed most of it away.
Cleaning crews had been ordered to stay 8 inches away from the piece, but it is not known if the woman had received those directives.A spokesperson for the museum said it is impossible to return the artwork to its original state following the damage. The work had been on loan to the museum from a private collector.Kippenberger was a German artist who died in 1997.