Museum staff sometimes struggle to distinguish art from everyday objects, as seen in a recent incident at the LAM Museum in the Netherlands. An elevator technician, filling in for a regular worker, mistakenly threw away Alexandre Lavet’s All the Good Times We Spent Together (2016), thinking it was trash. The artwork, two hand-painted beer cans meant to evoke memories of friendship, had been intentionally placed inside an elevator shaft to mimic something casually left behind.
LAM, known for its food-themed art and unconventional displays, places pieces in unexpected locations to encourage visitors to view ordinary objects differently. “Our goal is to make people see the mundane in a new light,” said museum director Sietske van Zanten in a statement. The technician, unaware of the museum’s approach, discarded the piece in good faith.
Fortunately, the artwork was retrieved from the trash before it was permanently removed. Curator Elisah van den Bergh cleaned the sculpture and placed it on a more traditional plinth near the gallery entrance for safety reasons.
