A modern art museum in Germany has fired one of its employees after the facility said that they added a personal touch to an exhibit – their own art.
According to Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the self-proclaimed freelance artist was a 51-year-old man who worked in technical service at the Pinakothek der Moderne, a modern art museum that holds more than 20,000 pieces, including works by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí – and for a short time, the employee.
The employee, who was not named in the local report, hung up a painting measuring almost 2 feet by 4 feet. A spokesperson for the museum told Süddeutsche Zeitung they weren’t sure how long the painting was up, but that they don’t believe it was up for very long. The man is said to have had access to the exhibit in which his art was hung outside opening hours.
“The supervisors notice something like this immediately,” a spokesperson told the outlet.
The impromptu addition to the gallery was taken down and the man was fired, but the police are also investigating. According to the newspaper, the employee had drilled two holes into an empty hallway to hang the painting, which the police are investigating for the offense of property damage. Citing police, the newspaper said the man had hoped hanging the art would be his breakthrough to fame.
CBS News has reached out to the museum for comment.
The Pinakothek der Moderne is one of Europe’s largest modern and contemporary art museums, housing four collections. The incident came just weeks after the opening of a new exhibit by the performance artist FLATZ, who in 1979 “posed naked as a living dartboard,” allowing spectators to throw darts at him, and in the early ’90s swung upside down between steel plates, hitting the metal loudly for five minutes “until he fell unconscious,” the museum says.
“The exhibition is devoted to FLATZ’s radical concept of the body that, in an unmistakable way, repeatedly addresses the sensitive and fragile as well,” the museum says.
